Margaret Cox reminisces dancing to Rock and Roll with her swing skirt [Text only]

Hello there! Now, one of the very vivid things I can remember is wearing, going to the Broadhall Community Centre and I used to go dancing seven nights a week, but I was eventually made to stay in on a Thursday. But I used to love wearing my fluorescent coloured knickers and I had this very full swing skirt which used to fly out with petticoats, but I used to love to show my fluorescent knickers.

Now another time that my parents weren’t very happy with me was when my brother was posted to Singapore and he sent for my measurements and I sent them to him and he bought home a Suzy Wong dress, with a 2 inch split at the bottom of the dress. My mother thought that was horrendous and I wasn’t allowed to wear it, so what did I do? I put it in a paper bag and I put it on when I got there and that was at the Town Hall in Old Town Stevenage.

My Stilettos, which I wore with the Suzy Wong dress, just constantly got stuck in the pavements. I nearly broke my ankle one day trying to get my ankle out of the shoe stuck in the pavement.

Now there was one particular night that I really thoroughly enjoyed and it was a Rock and Roll night and there was a competition and my dancing partner was Bob Carroll.  The night was so good that I won the Stevenage Jive Competition and I had this wonderful skirt with Rock and Rollers all round the side and a lovely little sleeveless blouse. But that was a wonderful night I also had my fluorescent knickers on, I never went anywhere without my fluorescent knickers!