Saturday Dances

By Clive Dalton February 2024.

There’s little doubt that for any of us ‘young-uns’ in the 1950s-1960s, and even some of the ‘not-so-young-uns’, that the Saturday night dance in the Bellingham ‘Toon Haall’ was our highlight of the week. Thinking about it, its implications started on a Friday, and then most of Saturday before being anxious to get home from work in good time, to get cleaned up for the dance starting at 7 pm. There was no point in being late as you could miss out on so much opportunity. I used to keep my dance trousers in a trouser press under the bed all week, so the creases came out like razor edges for the dance! Selecting the right tie was important too.

Then of course there was the analysis after the event on Sunday and even into Monday – especially from your boss or fellow workers to find out who was there, who were they chasing and who you had take home after the dance.

Preparation of the hall

Saturday afternoon was the highlight for the village kids when the hall was filled with hard wooden seats in blocks of four which were stored under the stage. These were films suitable for kids with cartoons and plenty of cowboy and Indian action. Events like the Bellingham Leek Club annual show in the hall was another event needing plenty of time to clean up, but the smell of leeks persisted for all to enjoy up till the last waltz at midnight.

After a film, the seats were put away, the rubbish swept up and powder scattered on the floor to allow dancers feet to slide after they took to the floor. The maple floor was in excellent order and had been renewed after the war. In winter, the heaters in the bottom of the hall were cranked up to pump hot air up through two large gratings at the bottom end of the hall between the two entrance doors. They certainly pumped out the heat and were avoided by the girls who didn’t want their skirts to end up blown over their heads to add to the lads’ entertainment.

The dance programme

There were a wide range of dances which varied with the band and the event:

• Modern
  • Modern waltz
  • Quickstep
  • Foxtrot
• Super modern
  • Rock & Roll
  • The Jive
• Old time
  • Old time waltz
  • Pride of Erin waltz
  • Military two step
  • Boston two step
  • Bradford Barn dance
  • Eva three step
  • St Bernard waltz.
• Scottish & Country
  • Morpeth rant
  • Eightsome reel
  • Polka
  • Dashing white sergeant
  • Gay Gordons
  • Circassian circle
  • Highland Schottische

The Bands

The regular weekly band was The North Tyne Melody Makers, which was almost a Bullock family affair. It played from around 7 pm till midnight.

• Drums: Steve Bullock.
• Accordion: William Bullock
• Fiddle: Athol Bullock
• Saxophone: Benson Thomlinson
• Piano: Tommy Hedley

Hunt Balls

There were two hunts in the area – The North Tyne and The Border, and annual Hunt Balls were features of each year to celebrate the membership, and earn funds for their running costs to feed the hounds and administration. Farmers provided meat from any dead or culled stock to feed the hounds as it saved burying them.

Information from Mandy Nichol. The main venues for the Hunt Balls were:

• Birtley in December
• Wark at end of January
• Crookbank in February (Cheviot Ranters band)
• Lanehead in March
• Falstone

There was always a Whist Drive before each dance where they played 24 hands of Whist with roughly 20 tables of four players. The cost was 2/6 for Whist, dance and supper. They were very popular and to prepare for them, in the afternoon before the night event, ladies made sandwiches sometimes with minced rabbit!

Bellingham Show dance in April was a special event where Josh Q. Atkinson from Newcastleton played. Then there was the Blackfaced Sheep Breeders Ball needing tidy dress and organised by Potter Wood of the Reenes farm. He was assisted by Jackie Potts, landlord at the Fox and Hounds who took the money of around 7/6 to 10/6 per head. The Eskdaleoneons from Langholm provided the music.

On very special occasions, Jimmy Shand and his band was invited, and this required getting really smartened up in a suit for men and plenty of frills for the lasses. It cost about two pounds but they played to 1 am. Jack Beattie sold tickets and the cost was over a pound from memory, but all considered it well worth it even just to see the man.

Tucker Jamieson from Wark used to invite Shand to perform there once a year which he organised. Some remember that he always made sure he made a profit to buy a new pair of slippers.

Learning to Dance

The lasses seemed to have no problems, but some of us lads tried hard but never really were able to flow across the floor with many of our partners’ feet suffering as a result. I hated dancing while at school, when our teacher Jean Milburn took us from our junior class to the Town Hall to dance – with the girls. It was the day that I always remembered to wear my hobnail boots, as I knew she would not let anyone with boots to walk on the floor. She never insisted we take our boots off thankfully!

But things change when girls become of interest, so when a student at Kirkley Hall Farm Institute before we had a social interchange with the young ladies at Alnwick Teachers College, and the Hexham Domestic Science College (The Puddin School), we had a lady come to give us dancing lessons. It was not easy as some lads had to take the ladies part which was opposite to the men’s, as we had no girls at Kirkley in my year, but for later on it sure was good value for the small fee we paid her.

John McPhail remembers that George Bell, the men’s hairdresser in Bellingham and Jean Milburn used to give Scottish Dancing lessons in the Town Hall, but they didn’t last for long. He said the attraction was the attraction of lasses and not the reels.

Claiming territory

A good reason to get early to the dance was to claim territory. The lasses always claimed the seats on the left hand side of the hall facing the stage with the lads standing, or if things were progressing they would be sitting on a lad’s knee. Sadly a couple of the lasses ended up as regular ‘wallflowers’ until some of us would take sympathy on them and give them a whirl. The rest of the seats were occupied fairly at random, many by folk who never danced and just went along to see what was going on. The best place for such folk was on the balcony at the back of the hall where the film projector box was. Nobody down below could hide from you from up there.

Everybody avoided the seats at the bottom end entry door for one very simple reason – ‘Time Gentlemen Please’ at the Pubs. So from 10.15 to 10.30 pm the lads from four pubs would arrive to view events and the talent. The mode of dress was very similar – a Burberry raincoat with no belt and two small outside pockets. But on each side, on the inside, there was a very large pocket which could safely hold at least one bottle of beer. A flat tweed cap was the other essential part of the uniform, worn at an angle indicating the amount of booze that had already been drunk before arrival at the dance. As the alcohol level increased, so did the angle of the cap, and the chances of one of the unsteady members bumping into each other with a few others joining in. It never got too much, and I never remember anybody in a blue uniform having to be called to sort things out.

The MC

Thinking back now and talking to anyone of my vintage about the dances, especially who was a young lassie at the time – the mention of Billy Richardson always causes an instant avalanche of tales. Billy was over six feet tall and a very solidly built Forestry Worker who lived on his own in the last house in King Street. He had especially large hands with a good growth of hair on the backs of them, and must have had size 13 heavy feet.

As MC he would announce what the next dance would be using the useless microphone on a long stand on the stage, and then come down to get into action. Any lass who saw him coming would grab one us or hide somehow to be safe from his request for the pleasure of a dance.

The lasses were terrified of his dancing technique which was to press them to his chest so tight that they could hardly breathe. He loved their soft feel. Then instead of his right hand resting gently along their back to guide and support them, he clamped his great paw on the left cheek of their bum so they could not break free.

Billy’s favourite dance was the Bradford Barn Dance as you formed a great circle around the hall, men on the outside and ladies in the inner, and after bit of fancy footwork with each partner, you changed with men moving to the right to dance with a new lady. This allowed you to make close contact with all the lasses in the massive ring around the hall, sampling the range of their perfume and perspiration as you went.

Billy loved the summer dances as many lasses in hiking shorts staying at the Youth Hostel couldn’t miss the local dance to inspect us natives, and tell the tale, when they got home, of imminent suffocation. The only hiking they ever did was from the bus in the village up to the hostel on a Friday night, and then back down again to the bus and home on the Sunday.

Billy never got into the then new craze of Rock & Roll or Jive, probably because there was no close contact with the partner, and he wasn’t built for rapid action with size 13 feet.

The Last Waltz

You had to be planning for this at least two dances before Billy called it, as if you had a cunning plan for a bit of after match action, you had to make sure of your plan, and not let anyone else muck it up. Once that was sorted, all the lads had to remember was Matty Sisterson having sat in the cloak room all night waiting for the hour you would remember your coat, so he could get home and refill his baccy pouch.

Local scandal. The single partner dancer.

This was a great source of local gossip and was where one member of a married couple loved to dance (always the woman), but the male would never dream of going along, not even to keep her company or even start to learn a few steps of some of the simple dances. The result was that the women found dancing partners which the local rumour said became more than dancing partners. This didn’t seem to worry the husband but it was not good for a happy marriage.