IT WAS a case of “the day the music died” when a Lowestoft music shop closed its doors for the last time after 120 years of business.

The Morlings music store, in London Road South, received a fond farewell on Saturday, with hundreds of people playing music and sharing memories before it closed for the final time.

The not-so-harmonious end came when owner Richard Morling was forced to bow to the financial pressures caused by the company’s ever-mounting pension fund.

But there is hope a new music shop will open in Lowestoft soon, after Morlings’ employee Peter Lister expressed an interest in launching a guitar shop.

Speaking during the final hours before closing, Mr Morling told of his sadness at being forced to close a store which has been deemed an institution.

Mr Morling, the 75-year-old grandson of the founder Ernest Morling, said: “There are so many people who have come in and said how wonderful the shop has been over the years.

“People have been sharing their experiences about what they bought, and various bands have come in who have had their instruments from us in the past.

“What has been so significant is that people have been saying how sorry they are to hear we are closing, but they are not blaming us for it.”

The business has been run by three generations of the Morling family since it was originally set up in Old Nelson Street, Lowestoft, in 1892.

The shop relocated several times over the years and battled back from three German bombing raids in the Second World War.

Among the store’s customers were Justin and Dan Hawkins, of Lowestoft rockers The Darkness, who bought their first guitars from Morlings when they started out.