Music expert George Ginn runs the longest-established record store of its kind in the UK. The only trouble is, he's gone off music.

George counts Norman Cook and Damon Albarn of Blur among his customers.

But after 40 years selling records, he no longer has any interest in listening to music.

His only hi-fi equipment is a rare Technics record player he keeps in his shop, The Record Album in Terminus Road, Brighton.

But he rarely even uses that, preferring Radio 4 as background noise.

George, 72, said: "I feel a bit like someone working at Cadbury's who has gone off chocolate as a result.

"Also, if I play rock music in the shop it will turn away people wanting classical. If I play classical, the rock fan will turn tail and run."

Mr Ginn has declared war on compact discs, which he refuses to stock.

He said: "CDs have taken the soul out of music. I despise digital sound completely.

"It cannot compare to the beauty of an analogue LP, which is warm and makes you feel you are in the same room as the artist."

The shop has won a world-wide reputation for its eclectic vinyl selections, particularly Mr Ginn's specialist areas of film, theatre and television soundtracks.

Many rock bands and DJs performing in Brighton have browsed Mr Ginn's selection of 20,000 vinyl discs.

Acclaimed Australian band the Avalanches bought 50 LPs this year and Liverpudlian indie rockers The Coral have also been in recently.

Mr Ginn remembers Hove DJ Fatboy Slim popping in early on in his career, "back when he was just plain Norman Cook".

But Mr Ginn, who has no time for modern pop, often fails to recognise his famous customers. His daughter had to tell him who Damon Albarn was.

The music that first fired Mr Ginn's interest was the classical soundtrack to the 1942 film King's Row, starring Ronald Reagan.

In 1962, he took over The Record Album, which had opened in North Road, Brighton, in 1948 - but threw out the stock and began again.

He survived a sickening attack by a robber in November 1999, which left him with a fractured skull and no hearing in his left ear.

A few days later a water tank exploded in the flat above the shop, flooding the shop and wiping out most of his classical collection.

Mr Ginn's lease expires in 2005 but he hopes the building's owners, the Brighton Corporation, will allow him a final five-year extension.

Mr Ginn, of Surrenden Road, Brighton, said: "I want to carry on because I enjoy it so much. I also feel my shop fills a gap for a lot of people.

"I don't regard the big, corporate music stores as proper record shops at all. They just sell those ghastly little frisbees - CDs."