Two Girls, One Dancefloor, and a 12-Inch Trammps Track
We thought we were terribly grown up, going away “with our parents” but having our own freedom in the evenings. Not quite adults, but rehearsing for it. The sun was hot, we’d finally mastered the art of the perfect tan, and that alone made us behave as if we were on the Riviera. Lowestoft became our own South of France by sheer force of teenage imagination.
It was the first holiday where the nights felt more important than the days. The hotel disco thumped every evening, and Disco Inferno — the 12-inch version no less — went on for what felt like hours. Abigail and I danced it right to the last beat, sweating, laughing, absolutely knackered, and certain that no one in the world had ever danced as brilliantly or as energetically as we had. Then Boogie Oogie Oogie would start up and we’d throw ourselves straight back into the fray, possessed by what we proudly called our “dance marathon.” Even now, I can’t hear that song without the muscle memory of those nights twitching in my feet.
There were two men in the bar who kept eyeing us up — older boys, practically men, and very much with girlfriends. They were far too cheeky, the sort who thought a wink was sophisticated. We weren’t remotely interested, but still flattered in the way only seventeen-year-old girls can be. We carried ourselves like sun-kissed sirens, even though we were more like kids playing dress-up in halter tops.
And then there was Gary, the football boy from the beach. I wasted a good few afternoons lying on a towel, trying to look languid while secretly hoping he’d wander over with a ball under his arm and ask me to join in. Of course he didn’t. Years later, when I actually did meet him again, I discovered he had all the charisma of a damp spring onion. Another crush crushed.
The French boys were more promising. Charming accents and a habit of making sandwiches out of bread rolls and slabs of chocolate. They asked us to go for a midnight swim, which sounded wonderfully exotic to me, but Abigail insisted we needed to get back to the room because The Love Boat was on, followed by some horror film she was determined to watch in the dark. I forgave her — we shared a bedroom that week and it was like being sisters. Whispering long after lights-out, eating crisps under the covers, talking about boys as if our hearts were made of glass.
I was trying to nurse my way out of a crush on Phil from back home — he of the soulful eyes and, as it turned out, the backbone of a wet lettuce. He’d told our boss that I fancied him, which made going into work feel like walking into a spotlight. Mortifying. Funny how two of the boys who loomed large in my teenage imagination — Gary and Phil — both collapsed under the weight of adulthood.
We ended most evenings in the cocktail bar, feeling sophisticated as we sipped drinks we didn’t really like. The barman, Richard, fancied himself as Tom Cruise long before Cocktail was even a film. He spun bottles, leaned on the counter with an over-rehearsed smile, and absolutely believed he was irresistible. I wrote to him afterwards — why, I can’t imagine — and naturally that turned out to be another disappointment. The letters were about as thrilling as damp cardboard. So was he, in Islington.
But when that song plays, none of that matters.
I don’t remember the awkwardness, the let-downs, the boys who didn’t deserve the space they took up in my head.
I remember the dancing.
The heat of the room.
Abigail’s hand grabbing mine as the chorus dropped.
The feeling of being young and sunburnt and absolutely certain that life was about to begin any second.
The inferno wasn’t the disco.
It was us — burning with possibility.
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