ALAN WHALLEY'S WORLD

HOW many survivors from the town's strict-tempo dancing days can remember being "rubber-stamped" before escaping during the interval to glug down an energy-lifting pint or two?

Those who do have something in common with Denis Brown, who waltzes us back to the late 1940s on a stream of musical memories.

Peter Street Institute at St Helens was Denis's favourite stamping ground, ankle-flicking his way around the ballroom to the music of Frankie Wilkinson's band.

And Denis, from Gerards Lane, Sutton Leach, responds to an earlier request from a customer of this column in revealing the identity of the crippled Hawaian guitarist who featured in that band.

"His name was Geoffrey Ellis and he came from Lingholme Road," says Denis. "He lost the use of his legs as the result of polio in childhood."

All the Saturday-night dance venues were dry in those days.

"If you wanted a drink," explains Denis, "you had to obtain a pass-out, often in the form of a rubber stamp pressed against your wrist or the back of the hand."

Then the Peter Street young buckaroos would trot off to the nearest pub ("if my memory serves me right, the Kings Head in Kirkland Street").

Most town-centre pubs of immediate postwar times had singing rooms. Volunteer 'turns' would get up to do a number, accompanied by the resident pianist, accordionist or fiddler.

"It was the sort of fore-runner to today's karaoke session," Denis explains, "and egged on by my drinking buddy of that time, Alan Boyes, I would often get up to sing."

Back in the dance hall, flushed with the triumph of singing in the pub (and doubtless by that earlier liquid refreshment) Denis would then be persuaded to step on stage with the band. He did this on frequent occasions.

"Who," he asks, "can remember such hits of the time as Slow Boat to China, Faraway Places , How Can You Buy Killarney and Does Your Mother Come From Ireland?"

Other popular hops were staged at Boundary Road Baths, the plunge being covered over in winter with a wonderfully sprung floor. Noel Powell's band provided the music ... "his drummer Johnny Babbs was a delight to watch, the way he handled those sticks."

St Helens Co-op Ballroom featured the Bert Webb Band and other fondly remembered musical outfits of the era included those of Wally Moss and Billy Haslam as well as Keith Tickle with the Deva Dixieland Swingtet.

"I hope," Denis signs off, "that my letter inspires others of the era to come forward with their own memories."

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