Why the tea dance music has stopped

Is this the last tango for a gentle afternoon pastime that is more than just tea and dancing?

Ten years ago, tea dance DJ Harold Pryce was enticing saunterers onto the dancefloor almost every day of the week.

A man once in demand, today he MCs at just one, on a Monday night at the British Legion Club in Market Drayton.

Harold, now 82, has witnessed the slow decline of a once popular Shropshire pastime, and it's that old fact of life at work again – dedicated practitioners are getting older, less-abled, and, frankly, dying out.

He says that, at the same time, younger movers and shakers are simply not filling their dance shoes.

The evidence is there for the eyes to see. As Harold spins his beloved CDs at the British Legion Club, a dozen or so die-hard, along with a handful of more youthful regulars, shuffle around the dancefloor.

And because of a lack of men, women have to dance with other women.

"There are no youngsters taking the place of older people who can no longer attend. It's a pity because the music is great – it's certainly better than today's music. It's all noise!" says Harold, from Cheswardine.

In his heyday he spun discs at tea dances in Wem, Loppington, Whitchurch, Market Drayton, Cheswardine and Cockshutt.

"At one point I did one every night, but I've only got one now. The one at Cheswardine has just finished after 20 years, because not enough people were going.

"But for the final farewell a lot of old faces turned up to say goodbye.

"I think we had between 70 and 80 people there for the farewell. If that many people came every week I would still be doing it.

"It is such a pity because those that do come are really enjoying it."

Harold's grandson, Barry, now 30, remembers being taken along to the tea dance at Cheswardine when he was 12 years old.

"We've got it on video," he says. "It was one of those massive video cameras the size of a TV camera, but it's nice to have it on video.

"I remember the room was quite full – there must have been about 40 people there, and they were regulars. That was tight going on Cheswardine dancefloor."

Despite the popularity of programmes like Strictly Come Dancing, it would seem tea dancing has gone strictly downhill in Shropshire.

Harold says: "I don't think it attracted more people to tea dances. We don't go for wearing all that stuff like they do – that's all ballroom, although I think it's nice to get dressed up a bit. It's nice for the men to wear a tie."

Harold was a youngster himself when he started attending dances – he was the 'new blood'.

And as he points out, as well as the tea and dancing there is an important social aspect to events. Harold met his wife Mabel at a tea dance in the village of Cheswardine when he was a teenager, but the dances were soon cancelled.

Fifty years later, when Harold retired, he set up a club again in 1990. It grew so popular he was asked to set up dances across north Shropshire.

"They asked me if I'd go and do it for them here, there and everywhere," he explains.

The father-of-three and grandfather-of-four said up to 60 people were dancing each night at one point. He began organising dances using record players but has since notched up an extensive CD collection of 'all the old ones you like to dance to.'

Some of his favourite memories over the last 20 years have been at Whitchurch Civic Hall

"Between 70 and 80 people would regularly turn out," he says.

"I remember one of the first tea dance I did was in Wem. My son David was on the committee of the club and when he booked one and they all laughed at him. They said nobody would turn up, but it was packed. They had to go and fetch some more tea and cakes."

Over the years the dancing group at Cheswardine raised thousands of pounds for charities including Samaritans, the MRI appeal at Oswestry Orthopaedic Hospital, the Air Ambulance, MacMillan and specific appeals such as Cheswardine Village Hall

Harold's wife Mabel died 19 years ago and his daughter Julie, 40, said the dancing was what kept him going. "He used to go with mum, even when she was really ill and in a wheelchair they went along," she says.

"I used to go because they couldn't get a babysitter for me and all the grandchildren have been along on their way home from school at one point."

And but for tea dancing Mr Pryce may not have met his current partner Mary, as it was on the dance floor that their eyes met and they enjoyed their first waltz.

But at his last tea dance in Market Drayton Harold is today left to his fond memories of a gentle afternoon ritual in its heyday.

After the final dance at Cheswardine, a special embroidered tablecloth which he takes to dances, was covered in signed tributes to his skills as a tea dance.

"Look at that – lots of people saying nice things. It is very touching. I will treasure this – I would never throw it away.

"It's been a social life for me, I've made so many friends. It would be a shame to stop, but that's what is going to happen."

Harold Pryce is urging groups who fancy trying a spot of tea dancing to contact him on 01630 661360.