FOND MEMORIES OF DANCE DAYS

WHAT a coincidence Mrs V Rigg mentions the Royal Empress Tango (Letter, June 28)!

Many years ago now, my first piano teacher, Mrs E Serjeant, gave it to me to play.

She said it is not the usual kind of piece she gave her pupils. One she remembered from when she was a girl.

She thought I might enjoy it for a change.

From memory, I think it was in the 1920s.

My old piano teacher died back in the late 1970s. It must have been popular and well-liked in its day.

Butterflies in the Rain was another old piece.

Accrington has now lost three of its ballrooms: The Conservative Club, The Mort’s and Knowlesmere Street (The Arks).

I just wondered where Accrington people go today if they want to dance?

The Ritz ballroom was used during the war, it is history.

It may not be used as a ballroom today, I think the actual ballroom floor could still be there.

It was a good floor for dancing.

I went up Spring Hill dancing, around the time ‘Remember You’ was number one.

It was only pop, not alcoholic drinks and it’s why many younger teenagers went: many were still at senior school then, a lot from Woodnook.

Really, police dogs and policemen would have been to protect the public.

Just the fact you saw police dogs when you walked past made mother feel it was rough: not a dance hall she wished me to go to.

Police dogs can be sniffer dogs for drugs.

I don’t think in the days of Mary Mortimer drugs would’ve been a problem.

It was more really wherever you got groups of older teenagers, especially if they had a drink. Fights could break out, someone got hurt.

I seem to remember more than one large Alsatian-like police dog with policemen.

We had bobbies on the beat in those days, even with dogs.

Some of my cousins went to The Mort’s, but I never did. I never saw the ballroom.

I don’t think any of the other dance halls in Accrington needed police dogs.

When mother was taking me to grandma’s on Saturday night, she walked me past quickly.

Really, the policemen and police dogs would have been there so no fights broke out.

Young people would be running on Blackburn Road, past The Mort’s, which can intimidate older people who want a quiet life.

If we did not use the old underground, we walked on Blackburn Road to grandma’s.

I went to Mary’s Record Shop in the daytime, told by mother I was not to go to The Mort’s dance hall.

P.S. one of my cousins told me Doris Day’s ‘The Party’s Over’ was played at The Mort’s as the last song of the night - nothing rough about Doris. Adrian Vincent Grady Accrington