Clayton Ballroom (?)

[maubel]

Can anyone remember going to the Clayton. I started going to "teenagers night' on a Monday when I was 15. They used to have dances on Fridays too and I seem to remember them having roller skating sessions too.

[Maggie/915]

I remember it well.

We all should have been studying but suddenly there was a social life.

The records / music of the time are worth remembering,

Sometimes embarrassingly so!

'I met him on a Monday and my heart stood still

Da do Ron Ron Ron etc'

What innocent fun and no alcohol for most of us.

Boys on the left side girls the right as you went in!

[Canny lass]

Boys on the left, Girls on the right! I'd forgotten about that! I do remember dancing (I use the term loosely) in Groups of 3-5 around a pile of handbags. I don't know what we were guarding. They contained nothing more than a lipstick, a hanky and the bus fare home. The lipstick was a well kept secret at home. I used to go to my friend's house up the street and put my lipstick on there Before going to Catch Raisbecks bus. One evening my father got on the bus, saw me with lipstick on and dragged me off. I never got to the Clayton that night and he had to take a later bus to Bedlington Club. Double punishment for me!

[HIGH PIT WILMA]

Heh heh !

I met my Wife at the Clayton ballroom,on a Wednesday night roller-skating,in July1962 !! [aged 17 years...whey,nine days off my 18 th birthday]

They were great times,falling down the first few times you tried,cos it was a few years since you last skated,and also these weren't skates you were used to,like your own!

Another thing was,we were used to skating on the concrete roads and pavements,which wore our skate wheels out in a matter of weeks,and the first time

we tried skating,[as an "Adult"...!],on a polished wood dance floor,it was like skating on ice,until we got the hang of it again!!

I used to pick blackberries,this time of the year,and sell them around the doors to my delighted neighbours,for thruppence a pund[two and a half pence],

and save the money to buy a pair of new skate wheels from Jimmy Milne,at half a crown,[twelve and a half pence]each! [i was 10 years old..!]

By 1963,aged 19 years,I was playing lead guitar in my group,on the same stage where Shane Fenton and the Fentones,alias Alvin Stardust,[in later years!],played.

Rue and He's Rockets were a great group who used to come to the Clayton,on Saturday nights,for the Dance night.

The Avengers also,were a local group,whose lead vocalist,Graham Bell,from  Blyth,went to London and made a name for himself,touring with  "The Who"

in "Tommy,the Rock Opera",in the late 1960's/70's.

Aye,the kids noo,divvent knaa who ti enjoy thasell's  like we did in them days!