In the mid seventies I occasionally took a trip from sleepy North East Essex to Dewsbury in West Yorkshire to experience Northern Soul in the North. A friend’s dad, who was from Dewsbury,  would drive us up after his work and our school on a Friday ( 3 hours drive) drop us off at a club, go and visit his mum and then drive us back some hours later in time for our Saturday jobs. It all felt other worldly and exciting. We were extremely fortunate that 70’s Disco was very available to us locally and 60 miles away in London. Northern Soul in the North felt edgy and niche to us.

50 years later I mentioned this to a friend from Yorkshire, who had not experienced Northern Soul, even though it was on her doorstep. Her family probably were aware of the reputation of some of these clubs . Also she was 9 when I was 15  We ‘Essex Girls’ were blissfully unaware, it was just fab music, great dancing and men with exotic accents. Definition of an Essex Girl below. We did not conform to the stereotype in Yorkshire or at home.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_girl

Since then the four of us ( 1 Essex, 1 Hong Kong, 1 Oxford and 1 Yorkshire) living in the far South West have all become a little hooked on watching Northern Soul Dancing on Youtube.

Then inexplicably we found a Northern Soul Club night in Plymouth.

There are a couple of links below to show how Northern Soul should be done and what it is.  And that perhaps is the best place to stop this blog. It is harder than you think and older knees, not so forgiving.But there were older knees than ours  there, giving it their best effort.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_soul