Last of the Top Rank toons. I had to finish with this. Back in 1972, one of my friends, Paul Lawton, who went to be a DJ at the Ritzy in Manchester, called me down on to the floor, because he was getting burned off by another dancer. It turned out to be John Oldfield, who was also friend of the DJ, at the Rank at that time, Chris Williams. For about 15 minutes, me and John Oldfield were dancing off against each at 100 mph.
I can remember putting in every trick in the book. I was diving over one of my friends back, into a forward roll, finished off with a backdrop, before flipping into a forward press. I was doing back and side presses, jacknifes into forward presses, jumping backdrops, jumping spins, the lot. In the end, Chris Williams started playing this, and about half way through put it on 78 rpm, which brought things to a close. By this time, no one else was dancing, and both the downstairs and the upstairs were arranged in a huge arc, just watching the two of us.
At the end, another of my friends from the time, who also worked at the Torch, Trevor Harley, came down and bought me a drink for keeping up the reputation of the Torch. I was going to post a picture of me doing a jumping backdrop, but didn't have time to scan it. I'll add it later.
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