Let’s twist again...

THE extra festive pounds must have fallen away 60 years ago today as Chubby Checker’s The Twist reclaimed the number one spot in the US on January 13, 1962, more than a year after first reaching the top spot.

Inspired by rock’n’roll music, the Twist became a worldwide dance craze - made all the more appealing by the fact that ‘grown-ups’ thought it was too provocative.

It spurred dances such as the Jerk, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed Potato, the Monkey and the Funky Chicken, but none were as popular – probably because it was so easy. Want to know how to Twist?

1. Make sure your dinner has gone down.

2. Wear the proper attire winklepickers (girls and boys), big underskirts (girls), drainpipes (boys).

3. Put the record on - The Twist, Let’s All Do The Twist, Let’s Twist Again, Twist and Shout – any will do, as long as there’s ‘Twist’ in the title.

4. Get in position. Extend one leg forward with arms extended forward from the elbow.

5. Get moving. Swivel your hips from side to side as if rubbing oneself with a towel. Keeps those knees slightly bent. As your hips move left, move your arms to the right, and vice versa.

6. Foot movement. Twist feet as if putting out a cigarette. Make sure your entire body is moving forward and back and from side to side.

7. Have a nice sit down, preferably with a glass of Vimto.

Here in Derby, the dance was so popular it made a whole spread of pictures in the Derby Evening Telegraph and reigned supreme on the dancefloors of clubs like the Locarno and the Gaumont.

Of course, the invention of flares and stack heeled boots in the late Sixties did for the Twist. You might have managed a Frug - where you’d stand with your feet together and knees bent slightly, moving your hips from side to side, but anything as energetic as the Twist didn’t really chime with the freespirited hippy movement.

But it has always remained popular with rock’n’roll fans and is still alive and well at wedding discos.

So come on everybody... We’re gonna do the Twist and it goes like this...

Singer Chubby Checker shows us how it’s done Competitors in the Brook Bond Twist Championship of Great Britain at the Locarno

The Twist was making the headlines in the Derby Evening Telegraph on February 16, 1962, with a spread of photos featuring youngsters from the Victor Silvester Dance Studio, in Derby, demonstrating the new craze

Providing the music for the Twist would have been Derby beat group The Rapids, pictured in 1962

A young couple take part in a rock ‘n’ roll championship at the Locarno

Keeping the rock ‘n’ rolling alive in Long Eaton in the 1980s