When I think of discos I have to confess I am transported back in time, these days we have clubs, places that are about being seen and looking good, somewhere in the late eighties disco’s turned into clubs where ravers met to dance the night away that morphed into the clubs we have now, more about drinking and looking good than the actual dancing.

For me disco means dancing, not just John Travolta in a white suit but school disco’s where we all copied the dance moves from the videos that were just starting to appear, copying the moves from Top of the pops dancers or the set routines for songs such as the Time Warp, Wigwam Bam and the Locomotion. The boys would go mad at Adam Ant, girls fled the dance floor as they leapt and whirled slapping their thighs in their best highwayman impression.  Of course looking back, although I claim it was not about being seen we all know the fashions, well let’s just say the neon colours did not really flatter anyone neither did Ra-Ra skirts, and the less said about the lyrca well enough said. I recently remarked to a friend that I was so glad that smart phones did not exist when I was younger, as a teen in the 80’s your camera was generally to clunky to carry round, and the fact you only had twelve or twenty four exposures meant that you didn’t take a lot of photos, most of those well orchestrated group shots as you attempted to feature as many people in one picture as possible. I am so glad no evidence exists of the fishtail skirt I made especially to match my bright yellow jacket and the silk shirt that trailed down behind my knees at the back, actually I take that back I would happily have one in that style today, just not a white one with luminous yellow velvet tiger style stripes on it. I have to confess I thought I looked cool but then we all did.

The other miracle of surviving the 80’s is of course that more of us did not do a Michael Jackson and have our hair go up in flames do the the amount of hair stray we used during the attempts to make our hair bigger and more voluminous that anyone else’s, Even before I ever put the first dye on my hair I hate to think of the damage inflicted by the hair-drying, back-combing then the blasting with a can of Insette, a hairspray that was so powerful nothing could move your hair once you had fixed it but that you had to hold your breath while spraying. If someone had wanted to blow up the High School all the would have needed to do was throw a couple of lit matches onto the dance floor at the Youth Club Disco. Ah the Youth club, discos, table tennis and trampolines but that will have to wait for another day the timer has just gone…