The Grafton and Locarno Ballrooms stood side by side in West Derby Road. I passed them each day on my bus journey to and from work. The Locarno held a dance each Monday night which in the Sixties was well frequented because there weren't many other places open on Monday evening. Local bands appeared there and the entrance fee was 2/6d. The dance floor was huge but the place lacked atmosphere. However, it was easy for me to reach.

On Valentine's Night 1963 Joy and I met straight from work to queue to see the now famous Beatles there for 3/6d. We'd had no tea and it was a bitterly cold night with a cruel wind blowing. When we arrived at the Locarno the queue was already round the block and so we waited hours to get in and had the dubious distinction of being the last two permitted to enter.

Inside the place was packed but at least it was warm. We saw the Beatles perform, but although they were good, they weren't as good as they'd been when playing at the Cavern. Afterwards the rush for the cloakrooms began. A combination of nothing to eat, tiredness and claustrophobia overtook me and I fainted, coming to exactly where I had fallen, no-one had noticed, but Joy had managed to get our coats. Outside it was difficult to get a bus home so that when I did, very late, I was grounded for a month! My parents relented though and I was allowed out but had to be home by 10.30 on the dot! It killed me to leave anywhere early but parental rule counted then.

The next time the Beatles came to Liverpool they were famous and we queued up outside the Empire Theatre to get a glimpse, but there were too many people there and I remember thinking that we had lost them to stardom, as indeed we had. However, we still had plenty of other bands to entertain us.

The Grafton Ballroom was in our eyes quite posh and only for the elderly! However, the Gas Board held their annual dances there so I usually attended them with my colleagues for a laugh. I remember that overlooking the dance floor was a tiered balcony with lighted tables for onlookers. The Beatles appeared here too in 1963 but more usually dance bands played for the more 'elderly' audience! When we first married, Tommy and I spent New Year's Eve at a dinner dance there but it wasn't really our scene at all even as a married couple, too much ear battering at the mercy of the local bands in a confined space to appreciate the gentle strains of a dance band.

Other clubs were also deemed by us to be for the 'old.' Sampson and Barlow opposite the Odeon Cinema in London Road was a popular haunt for a neighbour of ours who I used to meet on the bus home. He would tell me of its appeal and ask me to go with him, but it never appealed much to me. One of its downsides was that it was licensed and there always seemed to be fights there. It also got a reputation for Country and Western music which wasn't our style at all.

The Mardi Gras in Mount Pleasant was another licensed club, which I did attend and hated. It was like a cattle market there with the dance floor downstairs and bar overlooking it. When the bar closed at 10.30 the 'men' would deign to come down and stood round eyeing up the talent. Joy and I did attend there for a short while but by then we had both met our husbands to be.

A lot of new cellars or basements were opening up in imitation of the Cavern and Iron Door and one of these was in Hardman Street. The coffee bar was called the Rumbling Tum and the cellar beneath it - the Sink. When it first opened Joy and I went along there. We had heard that the membership 'card' was a sink plug! I don't remember the band playing at the time but I do remember that the walls were just plastered, no paint, and that it was all too new for us devotees of a dive like the Iron Door to appreciate!

Round the corner from the Sink and Rumbling Tum was Hope Hall which had newly opened in 1963 in the basement of the Everyman Theatre and was much frequented by students and Beatniks and art students. I remember that the atmosphere wasn't bad, the ceiling was quite low and supported by many pillars but we found it was a bit too 'way out' for us so we only went there once, on a date. I think the truth was that by then we had experienced the Iron Door and Cavern clubs which were right at the heart of all that was happening in Liverpool then. These newer clubs just couldn't hope to compete.

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