Paul Fitzpatrick: October 2025

It’s funny to think that the soulless Church, Village & Assembly Halls that we regularly found ourselves in, as bored and distracted teenagers, could be transformed so easily into bastions of joy and insecurity with the aid of a few flashing disco lights and a bit of chart music.

Stranger still to reflect that those dreary, uninspiring spaces with their scuffed floors, bare walls and stackable chairs could engender lifelong memories and provide a safe haven for first crushes and first kisses.

Aged fourteen to fifteen, your run of the mill youth discos traditionally came in-between the chaperoned school shindigs and the more sophisticated city centre discotheque adventures we’d progress to, when we were a bit more worldly wise.

In social terms we were in-betweeners, but it was an elemental in-between stage….. 

Old enough to know exactly how we wanted to dress, but too young to afford the outfits.
Mature enough to have an interest in the opposite sex, (or the same sex if that was your thing) but too immature to interact or engage effectively.

It was fascinating albeit slightly intimidating, to see the girls all glammed up in their gladrags and make up, when we were so used to seeing them daily, in colourless school uniforms.
We kind of knew they were more mature than us but now they appeared older and more sophisticated…. Pans People to our Just William.

There was always a distinct difference between boys and girls.
Girls perennially having a good time, dancing (yes, round their handbags), and socialising, I’m sure they were just as anxious as us but they gave the impression that it didn’t really matter if boys were in attendance or not.

Dancing for most boys was a means to an end, a way to engage, although most encounters would remain silent. The extent of the exchange being a tap on the shoulder to present oneself as a dance partner, followed by a customary nod of the head, to conclude the dalliance. 
I’d like to think we were channeling a ‘cool, strong silent type’ vibe instead of being tongue tied, but I think I know the truth.

Thinking back, I don’t remember seeing boys dance together unless the DJ played a Status Quo song, upon which, the dance floor was taken over with Rick Parfitt wannabe’s playing air guitar and carrying out that classic hands on hips Quo motion, where you’re waiting (hoping!) for them to bang heads.

I’m sure it’s down to genetics but the dynamics of these teenage events seemed to trigger a lifelong pattern, a division of the sexes at social gatherings.
Men standing apart….in the kitchen at parties, on the touchline at sports events, hanging around the BBQ at barbies, whilst women mingle and socialise.   

The DJs with their mobile ‘wheels of steel’ usually turned out to be quite geeky which was weird when you expected them to be cool and charismatic like Emperor Rosko.
Perhaps the motivation, apart from financial, was that it was a good way to meet the opposite sex, which makes sense as they generally punched well above their weight in that department.

Apart from a couple of staples like Jeff Beck’s “Hi Ho Silver Lining”, (always a crowd pleaser), and Nilsson’s “Without You”, (the de facto moonie at the end of the night), the music was generally chart music, which in 1972/73 was a whole lot of Glam Rock – Bowie, Roxy, T-Rex, Wizzard, Sweet, Alice Cooper with a bit of Rod, and Elton thrown in and of course, the heart throbs of the day, The Osmonds & David Cassidy for the lasses.

There wasn’t a lot happening when you were 14/15 in the early 70s, so any sort of social gathering was a big deal. It was common practice to discuss in advance what you planned to wear, who you hoped to meet and how you could acquire a can of Tennents lager adorned with a scantily clad model.

Afterwards, it was customary to compare war-stories, usually along the lines of “I was just about to ask her to dance when that knob from the year above nipped in before me!”.

‘What could have been’ was a common theme for adolescent boys back then, along with the classic…. ‘I’ve actually got a girlfriend, she lives near my Gran, so you won’t know her as she doesn’t go to our school’

It was also customary for some poor soul, to overdo the drink. Throwing up on some luckless girl’s new Chelsea Girl top in the middle of Hawkwind’s “Silver Machine”, before being ‘ejected from the premises’.

It reminds me of an old Pub Landlord gag where he professes that – Boys consume alcohol to boost their courage, whilst girls take alcohol to lower their standards.

Many a true word spoken in jest!

Our youth-disco adventures had a natural shelf life of around two years but I remember them being exhilarating…. offering an early sense of independence and an opportunity to feel part of a more grown-up scene.

Even now, certain songs are triggers that take me back to those days, like “Jean Genie” by David Bowie.

Whenever I hear that song, I’m at a youth-disco in 1973, dancing with someone I fancied but probably hadn’t uttered a word to in the three years I’d known her, even though I saw her at school every day.
Then at the end of the evening just as I’m about to make my big move and ask her to dance to “Without You”…. that knob from fourth year with the bumfluff cuts in ahead of me!
Just as well I’ve got a girlfriend where my Gran lives!!

Here’s some Youth Club Disco tunes from back in the day to jig along to, there’s even a head-banger for the Quo fans…..