Murder on the Dance Floor!

In the 90s and early noughties my penchant for a great time was dancing the night away on a sticky night club floor with my friends. There was a club in Norwich where I grew up called Hy’s and it had the most tremendous glass floor which was something straight out of Saturday Night Fever – I thought it was the absolute best thing since sliced bread! It was white but would light up different colours and at one end a stage stood which by hook or by crook my friends and I would be on, barging our way to the front not caring who was in our wake. I think we almost became as much of a fixture in that place as the incredible and now infamous dance floor was.

Wednesday was “Hy’s Girl of the Week” night where one lucky lady would be chosen to win the accolade and in prize be awarded a 3 month pass which allowed the owner (plus one) free entry without queuing. It was quite literally the holy grail and if one or other of my best pal Emily and I didn’t have one at any given time we had a bit of an outcry and the management would sort it so that one of us would win. You even got your name and picture in the local rag – it was quite the honour.

We didn’t go to drink (not really). We didn’t even go to pull boys (I mean sometimes that happened too). Our agenda was simply getting on that dance floor and often we’d be in there 3 or 4 times a week. We avoided the weekend nights though, they were reserved for the “old people” – the people in their late twenties and early thirties who still through it was appropriate to be out clubbing. We didn’t want to be a part of that scene and would declare “What saddos” they were! Little did I know as a teenager and twenteenie… Oh little did I know!

I look back on those golden days with such fond memories and yes, well into my late twenties I still went! Heck, if it was open now at the age of 41 I’d still find time for an occasional boogie but sadly Hy’s is long gone and actually, so is my stamina to be out late. My penchant for dancing however is still very much alive and so these days I tend to get my feet moving at home with regular kitchen discos while my children look on and probably think “You saddo, aren’t you a bit old to dance about like you’re twenty?!”

Absolutely not I realise these days unlike my former scathing self at the thought of an “old person” enjoying themselves! And I have long thought about that time before it closed when Hy’s auctioned off pieces of the dance floor. I so wish I had bought a square. Just one square to have positioned in the middle of the solid wood flooring I have in mind to revamp my kitchen. My very own dance floor albeit a grown up one surrounded by a Butler sink, Georgian green wooden cupboards and my massive family sized American fridge and family dining table. The music could crank up, the disco lights be plugged in and with wooden spoons in our hands (microphones see) we’d go for it like it was Hy’s on the very best night they ever had!

Alas, the dance floor, like the club is but a distant memory, but my wooden dance floor, the one I have planned, will one day soon be under my feet, waiting for the ultimate dancing song (Rappers Delight), a few friends and a dance off to end all dance offs!

Then we can all be in bed by 9pm because hey, it’s not 1999 anymore and staying up late in your 40s is far too tiring!

Collaboration.