Plaza Ballroom (introduction)

In Manchester - and other British towns - in the 1950s - young people, some at school, some in jobs, would meet in ballrooms to hear and dance to records played one then the other on dual turntables. These were not clubs as we know them now: alcohol was not served, just tea and - perish the thought - coffee. Late hours were not kept - these were afternoon gatherings, artificial nights in windowless halls

During blissful hours stolen from grim teachers and drab employers, the post-war young met future husbands and wives, future co-parents, future exes. They thrilled to the new, the American, and though they can't have known it, they formed memories that would never be bettered

It is disputed, but not disproven, that Jimmy Savile was the first man anywhere to play records in public from dual-turntables. It is not disputed that he was among the first. He managed and promoted the new culture of the teenager, transforming the fortunes of once declining dance halls. The Plaza Ballroom, Manchester. The Mecca Locarno ballroom, Leeds. The Palais Dance Hall, Ilford. Whatever he touched turned golden. Radio Luxembourg. Top Of The Pops. All the while, in locked offices, in staff houses and caravans, in gossip and in hushed tones, unspeakable things were done

But how impossible, to be old, with the memories of your best days to sort and no hope now of making new ones, how impossible to accept that these were not refuges, but spider-webs - that the lost culture for which we ache was built to snare us and steal from us

How impossible -

Best not to speak of it -

Loosed from our moorings who knows where we might drift?

The old, the British, those gilded afternoons, this is a song for them