In 1964 it was the second the kids of Holy Cross parish in north Belfast waited for all week: at 3pm on Sunday their faculty held a disco.
For the worth of some pence they might pack the corridor, the music would begin and for the subsequent few hours their world was a chic realm of dance, pleasure and rock’n’roll, particularly when the Hippy Hippy Shake performed.
It was an period of innocence in Northern Eire lengthy vanished – till final week when the BBC unearthed archive footage of 1 such disco.
The black and white video of kids in Ardoyne rocking like there was no tomorrow has gone viral and sparked a seek for groovers now sufficiently old to be grandparents.
Within the clip they dance to the Hippy Hippy Shake, a 1959 music by Robert Lee “Chan” Romero that the Beatles recorded in 1963. Two younger ladies specifically have transfixed viewers with vigorous strikes which may have triggered whiplash in anybody older.
The seek for the dancers has to this point yielded one, Jackie Meehan, who within the video is a hip-swaying 10-year-old boy in shorts and a black waistcoat.
“This was our large evening out although it was a Sunday afternoon,” Meehan, 68, a former labourer and plasterer who nonetheless lives in Ardoyne, informed the BBC. A Catholic church service was held earlier than the disco, he stated. “Most individuals didn’t take heed to the priest. All people was simply occupied with the disco … as soon as every week, that’s what they lived for. It was an actual outlet. You could possibly actually get your self psyched up.”
Chatting with the Guardian on Monday, Meehan stated kids in that period endlessly performed soccer, hopscotch and different avenue video games, producing high-octane power. Meehan, who has 4 kids and 9 grandchildren, marvelled on the photos of his youthful self, and the 2 ladies dancing beside him. “Completely excellent. They should have practised for hours and hours. You'll be able to simply see the enjoyment on all of the faces.”
The video was filmed in February 1964 for the BBC’s Tonight programme on Northern Eire’s gradual tempo of life on a Sunday, a premise considerably undermined by the kids’s whirlwind exuberance. It was first tweeted final week by Robbie Meredith, a BBC arts and training correspondent who encountered the clip whereas researching a report.
I've discovered this frankly fantastic archive of a Northern Eire main #faculty disco within the Nineteen Sixties whereas engaged on a report and it may be the very best factor I’ve ever seen. pic.twitter.com/BrQP5lehe0
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