The In My View opinion column with guest writer Dave Kelly

Record players are available in supermarkets and people are buying music from their youth on the most inconvenient of formats again – but why now?

A slice of nostalgia?

A bit of disposable income now you have everything else you need? Midlife creeping up?

I purchased an album in Crash Records last week.

It cost £36.99 for an LP that I already have on iTunes and CD.

We are consumers by nature and for me it started with Star Wars figures as a kid and Adidas trainers as a teenager.

This has contributed to my expansive knowledge of most things cool – depending who you are talking to. My 12 year old daughter would disagree.

Most of us like music and independent shops that people go out of their way to support rely on customers like me with their obsession.

I bet the number of people who have had to lie about how much they paid for those Jimmy Choo shoes are massively hidden. I sell designer clothes online and I’m amazed at the amount of chaps who have to get deliveries sent to their work in order to hide it from the other half. Without a doubt we all feel the tingle of the man-gene: the collector, collator, classifier, spotter, hoarder, accumulator that most males seem to harbour somewhere in their psyche. Have a look outside certain trainer shops in Leeds when a limited edition trainer is released – men are camping out at night. There’s nothing wrong with going after what you’re passionate about.

I never thought the things I enjoyed growing up would be considered “vintage”– I’m not even 40 yet. I see men at car boot sales reluctantly selling things that helped shape who they are now, or perhaps he has to make way for that new arrival.

That’s right missus, get him to sell his soul why don’t you, after all “you’ve got to grow up sometime”.

This is what happens when you become more Wetherspoons than Wu Tang Clan I suppose – but not me, I’m hardcore.

I never thought the things I enjoyed growing up would be considered “vintage”.

We can explain this fad as a latest of “cool” regurgitations from history and because of this a 40 year old dad is frankly a victim. Because vinyl, trainers and Star Wars figures are all mixed up with retro mania we should be pitied.

Maybe I will start a support group for people like myself, because as time goes by the need for analogue everything will spring from a Steampunk confusion about a world that cannot tolerate its digital self – you know, just like when we were kids.

The first record I did own was Sit Down by James and in no way at all was it Do the Bartman by the Simpsons!

Just for the record.