I’ve just been listening to WIYE and this weeks birthday boy was a gentleman called Chris who recalled seeing Cream at the late lamented Atlanta Ballroom in Woking. Funnily enough I was talking about the Atlanta the other day recounting its famous sprung dance floor. I’m too young to have been but I do remember seeing it before it was pulled down in the 70s.
Things often come back from the past in the most unexpected moments. It was a venue my mum and dad went to every week in the 50s when they were courting. The days when you went with a partner rather than going to find one.
It brought more than a tear to my eye. So God bless you sir and thank you.
BTW the question did Cream ever play Woking again I don’t think they did but I suspect Eric has pulled out his guitar in some pub. Last time he was seen in the area was jamming with Hawkwind at G Live in Guildford a couple of years back.
The Atlanta may have been demolished but it looks as though they are still dancing away in Woking @Clive
I do enjoy these tales of leisure palaces of the past.
Which makes me think: Where di my parents go to dance?
In fact, did I ever see my parents dancing?
Surely at one of those rather boozy East End weddings that my father’s family used to have they must have done the twist? Or the Hokey Cokey?
You will be very pleased to hear that, after I had watched that Woking Tea Dance, YTube suggested I watched this,
Yes Sirrreee!! That’s the way to do it!
That’s great. My mum and dad were of the era you had to learn. They knew all the dances and every time they went out dad bought mum a gardenia to wear. They met when dad was in the navy, mum and her best friend went down to Portsmouth for the day … mum wore a pair of hot pants with an anchor on them … I think the intentions were clear lol … they got engaged the day before dad went off for a two year tour of the med … imagine that now.
(@Clive Eric Clapton staged a Gary Brooker charity gig at Woking Leisure Centre on New Year’s Eve 2022 into 2023. Henry Spinetti, Dave Bronze, Paul Carrack, Doyle Bramhall II were in the band, plus backing vocalists, so not quite a “power trio”…)
Cool. He lives in Ripley of course. Isn’t there a bootleg called Ripley Boy or something?
A gardenia for every date.
Thanks for that wonderful description of your parents’ courting experiences. @Clive.
Life was so very different back in those days.