It's a Saturday evening

I bet that FIFTY YEARS AGO, none of us would have been typing on a computer. The chances are that on any Saturday evening, we would all have been out of our homes anyway. Tricia & Mayjan along with the other lovelies on here would have been jiving and having to fight off the attention of the boys. Midland Red, up the speedway. I was not old enough for work, minimum age was fourteen and limited to four hours in any day & not more than ten in a week. So I may have been coming home from a trainspot trip or even up the speedway with my dad & two uncles. What might you have been doing?

You are so right Philip, myself and my friend Tricia would have been at the Locarno or the Police Ballroom. We would have spent a good hour getting ready, with a couple of net underskirts beneath our full circle dresses, waspie belt, and winkle-picker stilleto shoes. Hair back-combed and sprayed with lots of lacquer. We would outline our eyes with a black pencil and apply a pale pink lipstick, a liberal application of Blue Grass or Tweed perfume and we were ready. Oh the excitement of queueing up those stairs at the Locarno, then into the powder room to primp and apply some more perfume, then onto the dance floor. We always met up with a gang of lads that we liked, so we chatted to them whilst eyeing up the talent. We always kept our eyes open for a foreign bald headed man who used to ask us to dance, we hated dancing with him but were too polite to refuse, he danced like a Sergeant Major on exercises! In the interval we would go upstairs and have a cheese roll and a glass of ice cold milk, how times have changed! The Police Ballroom was good fun too, but they didn't serve refreshments there, so in the interval everyone rushed to the nearest pub, great days.

Having just turned seven, probably playing on the bombsites around Whitefriars Lane with the kids from the Whitefriars Street courtyards until it got dark. Then begging to be allowed to stay up late to watch 'Whiplash' on TV.

50 years ago........?????!!!!! Blimey I was 8. I'd been introduced to football by a school chum who was mad keen on Tottenham and I followed their fortunes through the daily newspaper that was pushed through my parents letterbox each morning. Shortly after I remember picking up a copy of the CET and looking at the back page and reading about Coventry City FC and asking my parents if it was right we had a football team!!! My grandmother gave me the money to go and watch The City when I was eight. Made my way alone on the bus from Canley to 'The Meader' and followed the crowd to Highfield Road and was instantly hooked. Who needs computers, smartphones, tablets, WII, X box's and all the other stuff that folk 'NEED'!!

I love your replies, please keep them coming. Being really honest, I do sometimes wish that I had been more of a live wire, especially after reading the post from Mayjan. The fact is that fifty years ago when I was thirteen to fourteen, I was scared of girls, honest. When I watch the repeat episodes of 'Last of the Summer Wine' the character Norman Clegg, played by Peter Sallis, is so close to my real nature except that I was never a lino salesman. I did get up to mischief, but it was silly in nature. At school, I delighted once in putting drawing pins in some of the school piano hammers. Little things pleasing little minds kind of thing. I got away with it too.

I was always self-conscious of the fact I couldn't dance, which put me off meeting girls. It wasn't until much later I discovered there were gorgeous girls my age who couldn't dance either!

Your wealth of detail here is so apt. For many years, I was a volunteer taxi driver for a charity in Coventry and once a week I would collect patients (clients) from their homes & then return them afterwards. One Christmas time, I was asked if I would pick up a social group of them who were having a party. The two that I picked up were dressed almost as you have described, Mayjan, only this was about 1996. Anyway, I delivered them and later in the evening, collected them & delivered them both back home. The thing is, I still had not cottoned on! They were both crossdressers. I honestly did not know. .

Oh yes Mayjan as soon as you mentioned the waspie belt and stilletto heels (could wear anything but as soon as you put your stillettos on you felt very feminine) and Tweed perfume, that brought it all back to when my beloved and I used to frequent the Casino in Moseley Avenue. However, this time 50 years ago we were getting ready for our wedding so it is a special year for us this year. I would like to enjoy another evenings dancing there if it were possible but a couple of 'wrinklies' jiving would be a bit of a spectacle. !!!!

You are only a baby yet then Dutchman but I like your philosophical approach to some girls who could not dance. My husband only liked doing the 'Creep' around the dance floor until we were told to keep moving with the flow!

In the early Sixties there use to be about twelve of us that met in the Silver Sword, then we would move onto the City Arms opposite the Locarno.The excitement use to build as you climbed the stairs walked along the short passageway hearing the throb of the music & there was always that distinctive smell that I always remember I am not sure what it was, then turned to see a mass of bodies crowded around the dance floor. Oh what memories of that place. Regards, creteskyblue.

Do you remember the 'Alhambra' at the back of the Silver Sword? I was on jury service when I was introduced to the 'Alhambra' for lunch by a fellow juror, (no conferring you understand). That then became my favourite for a while for dinner in Coventry. "I do like it on here, oh you have noticed". Happy Sunday to you all.

That was the "Alhambra" in New Buildings, formerly the Meriden Tavern.

As my friend Jan says we would have been at the Locarno. How we loved dancing. What Jan didn't say was at the end of the night (if we hadn't met anyone who wanted to walk us home) we would walk home to Hillfields on our own, chatting and laughing, we never felt threatened. Sometimes our feet ached so much from dancing that we would carry our shoes.

You ladies had to put up with a lot of discomfort in order to project your lovely femininity. I cannot even imagine me trying to walk in pointed toe shoes along with high heels. Playing for hundreds of weddings has at least enlightened me to some of the other difficulties that brides & bridesmaids have to overcome just to visit the 'ladies'. . Anyway, our local weather forecast is not too bad for the coming week and I hope that we all can enjoy a better week without the dreadful scenes played out as they were last week. Best wishes to you all.

I could have been out, playing the fiddle in a square dance band. If I had been at home, I would have been listening to "Saturday Night Theatre" or listening to the Proms.