The decade that began full of attitude with punk and new wave was by late 1988 drowning in songs produced factory-style by Stock, Aitken and Waterman. Naturally this was extremely wearing and a change of direction was needed if only for the sake of people’s sanity and before something unholy befell one of the Reynolds Girls. An underground movement powered by indie dance tracks and various mood-altering substances brought about a change in tone, introducing the concept of the rave. To rave was to lose oneself in the hedonistic pleasure of moving en masse to a throbbing dance rhythm. I have to admit that the rave scene totally passed me (and many Station folk) by and I never got to enjoy the delights of dancing in a remote field like it was the second summer of love. But the effect on popular music was that dance tracks featuring cries of Aceeeeeedd! appeared in the charts and we started dancing in a rather odd way, arms rigidly reaching skywards, feet stuck to the spot, wild-eyed. There were a couple of local nightclubs where we could break out these moves - Reflections in Blyth, known as Fleccies and in Bedlington the Domino, aka Lucifers aka Lucy’s aka The Dom. The Dom was an ex-theatre, cinema and dancehall where legend has it my great great grandad used to be a clog dancer. From the age of 17 I’d begun to branch out into “going out drinking” with friends from time to time. After a rather exciting house party (in as much as it was held at our link-detached house) for my 17th birthday I plucked up the courage to venture into The Dom even though I got told off afterwards by my mam. I loved being on the dance floor there, the DJ was always pretty pliable playing the songs you asked for. There was also many a dark corner for folk to have a quick snog or share a tab (as in a cigarette rather than something more dodgy). I recall dancing to I’m Every Woman by Chaka Khan with wild abandon in my wide-legged culottes and all-in-one bodysuit, which was a nightmare when you went to the loo especially if you had false nails on. One time I opted to wear a long blonde hairpiece from the 60’s belonging to my mam and a bowler hat that my Uncle Bob courted my Aunt Nellie in - I must’ve looked really weird. I also had a fringed suede jacket around that time, surprisingly, as I disliked anything too rocky since rock videos were generally filled with girls in bathas draped over cars licking their glossy lips provocatively - far too prehistoric for my taste. Guys in cowboy boots with long hair and fringy jackets were definitely not my thing - though ironically at this time that pretty much described my future husband, unbeknownst to me. I preferred Transvision Vamp where at least the group seemed to have some sense of equality and I even sported a white blonde bob like Wendy James for a time. One funny thing about going to the nightclub was that it was rarely anyone’s intention to end the night there but by about half ten with the snakebites and the Pernod and lemonades flowing you’d hear the slurry refrain “you gannin’ to The Dom?” from many a mouth. Before you could say “Who’s In The House?” it’d be 2am and people were grabbing each other for the final slow dance at The Dom. Fleccies at Blyth was a smidgeon more sophisticated - perhaps the manager had been to London or even Ibiza - it was darker with a lot more ambience, the music was more ravey, less pop/rock and our school dinner lady wasn’t behind the bar or serving you up a burger at the Domino Diner. I fell asleep one night at Fleccies, the seats were that comfy. Some friends and I ventured into clubs in Newcastle once or twice, to The Studio or to The Boat with its revolving dance floor. One exciting evening after playing in panto at Newcastle Playhouse we went to the Stage Door club on Stowell Street then to a casino and got kicked out after one of our party topped up our coffee from his hip flask.
Hairstyles changed, out went the layers and in came curtains. Blonde was put on notice and we went back to black. Lisa Stansfield went around the world aye aye aye but couldn’t find her baby, Betty Boo was Doing the Do and even Madonna ditched the bleach for Like a Prayer.
I tried my hand at a variety of jobs to fund my incorrigible hair-colouring habits - retail assistant at the Co-op, trainee librarian at Blyth and Cowpen libraries, barmaid at the Red Lion pub in Bedlington and keyboard player for dances, turns and pantomimes.
There was an odd juxtaposition involved in being a part time pro musician and an 80’s teenager. I would be out one night announcing on the mic “Please take your partners for a Rhumba Rosalie”, then at the night-club singing “Aceeeeedd” and waving my arms about at Fleccies or at a sixth form social - after which we invariably got banned from the venue - and the following evening rehearsing with the Jelly Tots at North Blyth club playing “Nobody Loves a Fairy When She’s Forty” followed by a day of studying Newton’s Law in class. On the Lambton Worm pantos I worked with loads of brilliant, funny, talented people who somehow sustained audiences twice daily from December right through to Easter - it didn’t help me with my A Levels but boy did I learn about life and theatre and creativity.
I arranged to have my 18th birthday party at a club I played at regularly for sequence dancing and when we arrived the only current song they had was Black Box’s Ride on Time which played on a loop all night interspersed with Perry Como and the hits of Jim Reeves. Rather sweetly my daughter recently had her birthday party at the same club and we were blessed with a fantastic selection of music old and new from DJ Placcy Bag. The circle is now complete and the baton has been well and truly handed over. I can relive my memories and smile while my daughter makes her own.
Thank you so much for coming on this little journey with me down memory lane through the 70’s and 80’s. It all started when I bumped into Mr Tracy, Head of Sixth Form (see cover photo) and began to reminisce about old times. You’ll see in the photo I still can’t quite resist a bit of home hair colouring. I’ve tried to keep things upbeat through the old brown/blonde/rose-tinted specs and while there were definitely moments when life was tough, tears were shed and hearts broken … on the whole I know how incredibly lucky I’ve been in regards to the place and time I was born and the opportunities I was given. I try never to take it for granted.
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