The Ilmington Jubilee Dance

Ilmington Village Hall was packed on Jubilee Monday for the Jubilee Fifties Dance, featuring live music from a company of local artistes who had spent the past months perfecting their acts as part of the Heritage Lottery project.

Popular hits of the 1950s from every genre performed under the musical direction of Simon Kemp, gave plenty of opportunity for the large crowd of dancers- many in 50s costume-to strut their stuff. A special demonstration of rock n’roll got everyone on their feet to dance the night away.

The hundreds who attended ranged in age from six to eighty plus, with the evening evoking memories for many of the regular Saturday night dances they themselves attended in the Hall during the Fifties.

The evening was a joyous gathering of the whole community which gave special resonance to this final event of The Fifties, Ilmington Remembers project, before everyone climbed Foxcote Hill for the lighting of the Ilmington Jubilee Beacon; one of the official fires lit around the UK and the Commonwealth to mark HM The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.