The lost nightspo generations found
GENERATIONS of couples found love on its dancefloor and went on to get married and have kids of their own. But the venue’s days of playing Cupid came to a sad end.
A little slice of Rochdale’s history bit the dust in 2007 when nightclub, Liquid Rock, came crashing down. The Great George Street nightclub, which opened in the 1990s, had originally been known by a much more famous name in the town - the Carlton.
The Carlton first opened as a dance hall in September 1934.
The building had previously been an old mill that was completely redeveloped to include a new facade and entrance in the Art Deco style typical of the era.
From the early years of the 20th Century up until the 1960s, dance halls were hugely popular in Britain and the forerunners of nightclubs.
From the ‘30s until the advent of rock ‘n’ roll nearly 20 years later, dancing to the music of bands led by Freddie Platt, Ernie Mills or Les Moss led to thousands of romances, many of which resulted in a walk down the aisle.
The Carlton was a particularly fine example of a modern dance hall, with its opening making the Rochdale Observer on September 15, 1934.
The newspaper said the grandeur of the completed
venue ‘exceeds all expectations’, adding: “There is little doubt it will become one of the most popular places of entertainment in Rochdale and will attract many dancers from neighbouring towns.”
One man who really put the venue on the map during the 1940s and early ‘50s was bandleader, Freddie Platt.
Dubbed the King of the Carlton, Freddie attracted dance fans from across the North West and made regular appearances on the BBC radio show Saturday Night at the Palais.
Ron Butterworth was only a teenager when he was taught to play the trumpet by a member of Freddie’s band. Soon Ron was playing in Freddie’s band alongside his mentor.
He said in 2007: “There were some great characters around the Carlton and Freddie was one of the biggest.
“I went there for music lessons from Tommy Coope and that was my introduction to the Carlton. When he was due to be broadcast he used to pay our band to play before because he didn’t want his band to be tired by the time they got on the radio. The Carlton was the place for dancing and that was because of Freddie. The music and atmosphere was fantastic and people used to come from miles around.”
Back in 2007, Norman Collinge described how he spent many nights in his youth at the Carlton.
Recalling his experiences with a twinkle in his eye, the 86-year-old said: “It was an absolutely fantastic place. Everybody seemed to go there, it was so popular.
“We used to walk up
Drake Street in the afternoon spotting which girls we would ask to dance that night.
“It was the place to go and a lot of marriages started there.”
One man who found love at the Carlton was Michael Smyth. The 79-year-old former bricklayer met his late wife Catherine there in 1951.
He was enjoying a night out with friends when he asked his wife-to-be to join him for the last dance of the night. The couple married two years later and went on to have two children, four grandchil