Does anyone remember the days of dancing around your handbag?

[LivingitLarge]

I am watching Top of the Pops 1977 and reminiscing.

I told dd that in those days (70s/80s) we used to put our handbags in a bag pile on the floor and all dance in a big circle around the bags. I got a strange look 😐. Does anyone else remember doing that?!

I would go in to the disco (usually R and J's in Bristol) smelling of Anais Anais and leave smelling of cigarette smoke after snogging some random while slow dancing to "True" by Spandau Ballet.
Then round to the taxi rank on the traffic island on Bristol centre and asking if anyone was up for sharing a taxi (I lived on the northern outskirts) or walking up towards the fowns to see if I could get a returning taxi.

Southampton top rank Saturday nights, the football team swanning round, back to Mike's van for burgers then long drive home up the A30..Good times

Yes, I remember this, all bags went in the middle of the floor, danced the night away. Great days!

Yep, I did this in 1980's. Along with the rowing dance.

Yes I remember this! All the food places in my town stayed open until 2am then. You could go to the pub and get a Chinese, pizza or subway after. There was a supermarket nearby and often my friends and I would find an abandoned trolley and take turns to push each other down the street on the way home

When covid hit, the takeaways didn't reopen with the same hours they used to. Now the whole town closes down between 10-11pm except the pubs.

@Pencilsaremylife, ha I also had my 28th birthday party at a night club I'd been going to for 2 years. My Dad offered me a big present (car) or a big party. Ally sisters chose the car but I chose the party. Strangely they all now say they wish they'd chosen the party. They remember my party well but hardly recall their first cars.

@Pencilsaremylife 18th not 28th.

Was doing this in the early noughties too & shoes off.
Even now I prefer dancing with my shoes off & like a pp I wedge my clutch bag under my arm 😁

I do feel for the teenagers of today. Not getting the thrill of sneaking into a club at the age of 15 with your mates or with your 18/19 year old boyfriend. Also my first drink I ever bought was a vodka & tonic in a club at 15.
Was really disappointed that the first time I was ID'd was on my 18th birthday 🤷‍♀️ luckily I had my birth certificate with me.
I also used to 'rent' out my birth certificate for a quid to my younger female friends. This was back in the late 80s/early 90s.

Also remember buying cigarettes from vending machines (always Marlboro the original) although I was an occasional smoker, just had the odd cigarette if I was hungry when out as it killed my appetite (I was stick thin then but ate like a horse)

@MeinKraft oh yes the ride in the shopping trolley, even better when you were pushed downhill 😂

Yep. 50 here and I remember doing that!

My favourite bag/shoe combo (bag and shoes HAD to match!) was a clutch bag, ruched "leather" (ha!) and shoes that were about 1.5 inch heel with a sort of bow arrangement on the front. They were in a weird sort of dark pastel green.

In Australia here, and absolutely remember all of this!

Dancing in a group with bags and shoes on the floor in the middle of the group. Group trips to the ladies. From 15 to 18 years never got asked for ID. Stinking of smoke. Spiral perm. Bags were so bloody big you could put a full size hair spray (or alcohol bottle) in it!

We also had a bunch of pubs that had music nights on Sundays for 3 hours from 9-12. Can't honestly remember now how the hell they made the space, assume they moved some tables. The floor at some of them was even more manky than the ones with dedicated dance floors and they were packed with people dancing!

I remember winning a Kim Wilde album from dancing on the stage.

Aah, those were the days.

In the US here and my party days were mid 70s - early 80s. We used to leave our bags hanging from our chairs or sitting on the table, none of us ever had them go missing nor was money ever stolen. And no one had ever heard about 'roofies', GHB, or of anyone's drink being 'spiked', either. We routinely left our drinks unattended or accepted drinks bought by men we met out dancing. It was a different world back then!

I can remember getting home with smoke reeking clothes and hair, too. Clothes got dropped on the laundry room floor and quite a few nights my hair smelt so bad I'd jump in the shower and wash it before falling into bed 'a little worse for wear' with my wet hair uncombed only to wake up in the morning with an absolutely rat's nest of long hair (long enough that I could sit on it) to comb out.

But God, did we have fun!!!

Epic, dancing round the handbags or asking the DJ to mind the bags. Going to the sweaty toilets when a rubbish song came on to chat about boys and swap make up. £1 entry before 10pm, snakebite for a pound. Sticky carpets. And getting up for work the next day, no problem.

Wow. I thought it was just a expression.

Also for the fellas when the bouncers would say “sorry lads not tonight” as they’d made the crime of wearing WHITE socks 🤣🤣🤣

We all dressed up as well, blokes in suits !

Remember that awful moment the lights came on and everyone frantically tried to fix their eye liner. Then the bouncers had the job of moving everyone along and everyone resisting. A club I went to had the ingenious idea to play the Coronation St. theme at full blast to move people out and it worked!!

Thursday was the start of the weekend. Fortunately this was my payday.
Onto another club on Friday, the main club on Saturday, back to Saturdays club on Sunday. And Thursdays club on Monday.
No money left for Tuesday and Wednesday.
Met DH on a Saturday he asked me to dance at 1.50am.
Bags and shoes in the middle. If your friends didn't want to dance or had copped off you just joined in another circle.
Happy days.

Wish they were back again. Meeting people in real life and being chatted up and snogged. Great camaraderie in the ladies toilets . No fights that ended up with anyone being seriously hurt .
And added Irish touch that at the end of the night , lights on and the national anthem played while everyone stood to attention .

I’m in my 50’s and remember this like it was yesterday. 80’s clubbing with white high heels and gaudy plastic handbags to dance around then on to 90’s indie clubs with docs or huge trainers, spiral perm and tiny skirts. I had forgotten how much everything stank of smoke though. Great times!

Yes, the delights of actually socialising.

No mobiles. Talking to people. Snogging in corners of clubs. Desperately trying to protect the phone number someone had written on your hand....they were the days.

And then Whigfield came along in 1994.......

I remember late decisions to head to our local nightclub after a night at the pub, and there was always one lad in trainers, not allowed! So he would take off his socks and pull them over his trainers to try his luck!

Yes!!!! Happy days. I remember getting in the floor to 'oops upside your head'🤣 that not the correct title. Would depend on what you were wearing cos no one wanted a dirty bum😠🤣

You haven’t lived if you haven’t done Oops Upside Your Head!

Loved my clubbing days around Manchester. Local Wine bar first, then a few bars in Manchester, onto a club, then finish the night in the Casino. (Sometimes going straight from there into work the next morning)

Also the odd night in Blackpool, well before the Stag and Hen do place it’s become now, when groups of males would hang around the nightclubs looking for groups of girls and offer to pay their entrance fees, because the nightclub wouldn’t allow a group of men in on their own. (All female groups were allowed in). Met some great blokes that way, and often ended up having a free night out, because once in the club, many of them also offered to buy your drinks and stayed with your group of girls rather than splitting off by themselves.

Manchester in the early 90s. Oh, that brings back a lot of memories.
FAC51/Hacienda, 21 Piccadilly, The Ritz, Royale's....it really was something very special.