The Sharpe Spot
written
by Angela
& James Sharpe
from Bingham, Notts.
How we started Rock 'n' Roll:
We started Rock 'n' Roll about ten years ago. Although we could do ballroom dancing and jive, we thought we would try Rock 'n' Roll as we both like the music. We went along to Farnborough (Hants.) Rock 'n' Roll Club where we leaned Roc Jive with Roy Forbes.
The first dance we attended was the Guildford Hot Fifties where we saw Mark Keeley's Good Rockin' Tonight. We thought they were fantastic, a good jiving band and we didn't sit down all night. We both paid for this the next day as we were not used to such exercise! We then began collecting flyers realising this was a whole new world for us as there appeared to be dances all over the place.
The next venue we tried was Crondall (Surrey) where we saw 'The Boogie Children' and although they were a good band, they played too fast for beginners like us! We were then recommended to try the 3R's Club at Reading which we enjoyed so much that we went every fortnight.
By now we had started to notice there were several different styles of Rock 'n' Roll dancing. We then joined Bill Heron's classes in Reading for the original fifties jive lessons. We also went to the Winning Post at Twickenham where we met Kav Kavanagh (ex Rock 'n' Roll champion for Britain and Europe) and we started lessons with him. A different style of Rock 'n' Roll again.
We have now visited lots of clubs all over the UK and at the last count were 108. Rock 'n' Roll has made such a difference to our lives and we have met and made such wonderful friends through it.