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Home <> Lifestory Library <> Explore By Location <> <> <> Saturday Night At The 1950’s Hop




  Contributor: Chalky WhiteView/Add comments



The following are memories recalled by 'Chalky White', as recorded by Hanover Housing Association in their book 'Tale of the Century' published in 1999.

Here we go, Saturday night again. Hair well Bryl-creamed, shoes polished, best suit on; off to the weekly dance at the local Corn Exchange with your mates, hoping to pick up a girl to dance with and perhaps escort home.

Pay, get your ticket and into the dance hall. Scan the room -- ah yes, there are the wallflowers, all the young ladies who haven't got a partner. Hair neatly curled, pretty dresses and sitting so demurely with hands in laps, ankles crossed, trying to look happy with a false smile. Hoping and hoping some nice young man will ask them to dance. As the evening wears on any man will do!

Wait, wait! Don't rush in where angels fear to tread. Watch until she gets up to dance, she might be 7 ft tall or a 2 ft midget, and can she dance? You don't want to push an inert object around the room.

Right, she's the one -- now is the time to drop your mates.

Tell them you will see them tomorrow in the ice-cream parlour and dash over to the girl and ask for the next dance, before the poor slob who danced with her first can get there. You can feel his angry eyes in your back but you don't care, your mates will deal with him if he starts anything (many a fight started on Saturday night over the local talent).

Dance with her all night and sit beside her so no other Romeo can nab her off you. Spend your hard-earned shekels on a lemonade shandy for her in the interval. To impress her you tell her you are an aircraft designer when really you are a 'Dolly Boy' (someone who holds a block of metal called a dolly against a rivet while the riveter flattens it).

She tells you she is a Personal Secretary, when you know she is just the post-girl, her most important job making the tea.

After the last dance, you ask if you can walk her home.

There are no buses at that time of night and no money left for a taxi. Where does she live? Only at the far side of town from where you live. As you walk her home you hear thunder in the distance, but you don't care; the thought of a goodnight kiss makes your feet fall light (stupid boy).

You arrive at her home and in the passageway between the houses you put out your arms for that long awaited smooch, when: 'What time do you call this?'. 'Get in here this minute. Clear off you lout', it's her father's voice and off she scuttles without a goodnight.

Now the long walk home -- cold, wet and soaked to the skin. Never again! Sleep until midday on Sunday and get told off by your mum for coming in late and being soaked through. Have roast beef and Yorkshire pudding for dinner and then off to meet your mates.

'She was a corker,' you boast, 'her parents invited me in'. Next Saturday night there you are again (you never learn!).

Different girl, but this time you are canny and during the first dance you find out that she lives just two streets away from you. She doesn't tell you until you are both outside the hall that she is staying at her Aunt's house that night.

'Where?' -- the other side of town of course, and is that thunder I hear?
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