By Alan Calvert IN the end I just did not have the heart to go through with it.
My resolve was just a little too achy breaky for Western line dancing, the American craze which continues to take Bolton by storm.
The Mustang Club which meets at the Festival Hall in Bolton Town Hall on Monday evenings is just one of many providing a fun night out locally for folk who know when to yeee and when to haaa.
Bolton record shops continue to sell the music and it looks as though line dancing is here to stay.
I turned up at Bolton Town Hall in jeans and check shirt intending to give it a go, but everybody looked so darn fine, dandy and proficient that I headed myself off at the pass and watched from the sidelines instead.
Llew Sadler, the 54-year-old owner of Select Fireplaces in Farnworth, goes regularly with his wife Barbara and 11-year-old daughter Sarah.
"You have to think what your feet are doing," he said.
"It takes your mind off work completely."
It was evident that there is a genuine family atmosphere throughout the group.
"We have made a lot of good friends here," Llew said.
Hilary Waddington from Breightmet was hooked about a year ago when she saw a demonstration in Bolton Precinct and has been turning up on Mondays ever since, gradually increasing her collection of hats, boots and western clothes.
She has three different outfits and reckons she has spent between £150 and £200 making sure she looks right on the dance floor.
Her 75-year-old mother, Mary Jackson, has been going along since Christmas and although she only gets up to dance "now and again" she enjoys the evening enormously.
On Monday night she took a cake she had made to celebrate the Fourth of July - American Independence Day.
Friends Lesley Gillard and Lynn Booth from Darcy Lever were among the well-dressed cowgirls stomping, strutting and shuffling along to the country and western-style music.
All this is orchestrated by Manchester dance teacher Barbara Deane, who introduced the popular Bolton Town Hall sessions nearly two years ago.
Four years ago she visited her sister in a small town near Vancouver in Canada and was amazed to find that line dancing was THE big social happening.
When she returned to England she started introducing her own sessions and has now built it up to the point where she operates from five different Manchester area venues, some of them twice a week.
"My pastime has turned into an enjoyable business," she told me.
Barbara - "They call me Mustang Sally" - hopes to open a Mustang Club in Droylsden, Manchester.
She understands that western line dancing has been taking place in the United States for 20 years or so, starting in GI bases where there were no partners for the soldiers.
It seems that this is at the heart of the phenomenon.
Participants of all ages and from all walks of life - particularly women - can enjoy taking part without any of the complications and angst associated with the traditional dance hall environment.
"This is social dancing," Barbara said.
"This is going for a night out."
Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.
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