This is only part of my story, relating to my beloved Northern Soul music and how it has been part of my life. The rest of my story is in my book which will be published soon…
Born in Glasgow Scotland, I lived in a village called Bonnybridge, in between Glasgow and Edinburgh. The closest town to me was Falkirk where nothing much happened, that was probably a good thing in the long run as it made me venture out more and I discovered the music that changed my life. With an average age of 17 year olds attending Northern Soul events, I believe it moulded who we were, our behaviour, attitudes and interactions with others.
I already had a passion for dancing, loved Motown, when my friend Liz introduced me to Northern Soul. We started going to the Metro in Falkirk where lo and behold the DJ Tommy (Cockburn) was into Northern! We met a small group there who were to become my closest friends, Avron, Legi, Hank and Jack Pritchard. We started meeting every week and eventually hired a bus, we were off to Wigan Casino! life was never the same after that!
The next five years of my life was focused around Northern Soul. I was either dancing, travelling to an event, planning how to get to the next one, recovering from the last one or trying to catch up on sleep. I was already the “unusual” girl at work and unlike my work colleagues who were going steady and planning weddings, I didn’t fit in to that scene.
So I packed up and moved to Southport in England which was only half an hour by train to Wigan and also within easy reach of The Ritz in Manchester, Blackpool Mecca and Tiffanies in Ainsdale to name a few. I had a great time! The first Friday of the month, we always had a full house with all the Scots coming down to make a weekend of it.
I made so many friends during that time, one of the other important things about the Northern scene, the friendships. It was all about the dancing for me, as with most of the girls at that time, I wasn’t into collecting records but I had a little blue record box that Tommy gave me as a going away present (with “Don’t Leave Me This Way” by Thelma Houston in it) I filled that over the years and that was my collection! Anyone who knows me (including Richard Searling) would know what my favourite record is …
By now my other yearning for travelling had re-surfaced and I left in February 1981 to go and work in Holland with the plan to travel down to Greece and work for the summer. A month later one of my most trusted friends Jean joined me in Holland and we embarked on an adventurous five years travelling around the globe. Visiting places like India, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Canada, Fiji, Hawaii and various European countries, we discovered that there is no nightlife like the North of England. We did lots of disco style / stomping dancing and of course Northern when we could (usually in the living room with a cassette tape on!) And we did meet some soulies along the way.
Apart from a few trips home and a short time when I tried to be “normal” and stayed long enough in Scotland to settle in my own place, I did get into the Jazz-Funk alldayers when I was there, and attend some of the soul nights, alot of my soulie friends were getting married and settling down. I would still abandon whatever boyfriend I had for a soul night!
So after two years I left again with Australia firmly in sight as my chosen country of residence stopping off to wander around China. I did believe then that I would be leaving Northern Soul behind this time!
Six weeks after I got here, I met the love of my life Rob! So that was another adventure. For once I didn’t want to go dancing and leave him behind, he was my soul mate and we enjoyed the Aussie style pubs, bands, went camping trips socialising with friends renovated our first flat, worked a lot and bought our first house together. By this time I only had one cassette tape left! But no Soul Scene as far as I knew at this point, I wasn’t really looking then.
We got married in ’91 and went to Sri Lanka then Austria and Scotland where we ended up staying for 5 years (every thing happened in fives for me then!) I still didn’t search much for Northern as all my old friends weren’t going out then either. We had a reunion for Hank as he had cancer, we travelled down from Aberdeen and alot of old faces were there. It was the last time we were all together. Sadly Hank passed away a few months later.
We lived in a lovely wee cottage just outside Aberdeen. I got a call from Dave Nowell at that time asking for my Wigan Casino story as he was writing a book. (I didn’t know it had been printed until 10 years later!) We then had our lovely daughter Pamela and I was completely immersed in motherhood. When she was 2 years old we headed back to Australia.
We moved around with Rob’s job at that time living in Mount Isa, Gladstone and Adelaide. We were very family orientated and did the usual things that included children, friends over for dinner etc. However by the time Pamela was at school Rob and I were famous for our parties as they always included lots of dancing, instead of the sitting around type of thing.
I saw a poster for a Northern Soul Weekender in Adelaide and intended to go and have a look, but something came up and I didn’t go. I have since discovered that it was actually The National Weekender!
After about six years, we returned to Sydney. A workmate of Rob’s informed us that there was a Northern weekender on! I wasn’t missing out this time! I still didn’t believe it could really be genuine Northern Soul, until we walked into the place, Barbara Mills was playing and it was real Soulies dancing! I was straight on to the dance floor! What a feeling! I remembered every beat of the music. Within half an hour we discovered people who knew me. I’ll never forget how I felt; it was like the part of me that had been missing had returned.
We discovered that Keith Miller was running Soul Biscuits every month and started going along there. Our first weekender then was at Billy’s in the Gold Coast, followed by trips to Perth, the National in Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and it’s been non-stop ever since! We are now part of the extended family of Soulies in Australia and Rob and I spent the last 3 years travelling to different cities to attend soul nights. We’ve had some great times and made some good friends.
We organised a Weekender in Sydney which was very successful, we have now organised three, usually first weekend in September, and also the local Sydney Northern nights around every six weeks.
2010 in Sydney I was involved in organising the 13th Australian National Weekender,and passed the baton on to Melbourne for the 14th National.