It is not known exactly
when Rockshack first opened, but the name itself suggests that it was during
the Old Stone Age. Professor Dolczech, of the Department of Speculative
Archaeology at Leeds University has suggested that Rockshack may have started
out trading in heavy flints. This market, of course, collapsed when the paper
shop across the road started selling the new lighter flints at the beginning of
the Neolithic period. It would have been at this time that Rockshack became a
guitar shop. Obviously this was before the discovery of electricity, so these
would have been primitive clockwork instruments, designed for use with
horse-drawn amplifiers. The development of water and wind power had a huge
impact on the textile industry but did not affect Rockshack at all, which
remained similarly undisturbed by the Roman Empire, the Vikings, The Norman
Conquest and the eruption of Krakatoa. Throughout all these upheavals, the
little Shack continued to supply quality guitars to both peasants and the
aristocracy.
The Shack first attracted
the attention of the world when Paganini dropped in, looking to part-exchange
his Stradivarius for something a little funkier. He left the shop carrying an
early steam-driven Les Paul which he subsequently used to perform the theme
tune for The South Bank Show. The Shack was now on the map and a must-be-seen
feature of the romantic Yorkshire landscape, attracting leading composers,
virtuoso performers and people from the bus stop with time to kill on rainy
days.
It was in March 2001
that, while history was looking the other way, the little shack on Queens Road
was demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass. It was necessary to
relocate to the new MegaShack on Cardigan Road. The rest is, as they say,
geography……………….(to be continued).