A SPECIAL event celebrating a club night which ran in Blackburn from the mid Seventies to the mid Eighties is to be held on Friday.

Peepers was a youth club which was held in a cellar underneath the former Turkish Baths off Richmond Terrace and Museum Street, Open to youngsters aged from 14 to 17. The soundtrack was a mixture of prog rock and heavy metal and it appears to have had a special place in the hearts of those who entered this secret world.

Christian Bell, in the final year of a Fine Art Degree at Blackburn college, is behind the Peepers celebration event to be held at the Prism Gallery on Lord Street West from 7pm.

“At last year’s Festival of Making I was looking at using an empty space across from Blackburn Museum and people started to tell me stories about how it had once been the spot for this special nightclub,” he said. “I was was just intrigued by the whole thing - I discovered a group of Facebook of people who used to go there and it was an insight into this unknown world.”

Open every Friday, youngsters would go down a back alley and then down stairs to get into Peepers.

“There were murals on the wall and it all these ultraviolet lights,” said Christian. “People remember the lights catching clouds of dandruff floating in the air!”

Non licensed, Peepers sold Coca Cola and Lilt and these will once again be the order of the day on Friday night.

On Friday night, Jo Duxbury who was an an original Peepers-goer and is now a DJ will be putting together a special Peepers playlist and artist Daniel Davidson from Prism has reimagined the murals at the club.

“There are no photos of Peepers that we can find,” said Christian. “But we are not trying to recreate the club, it is more an interpretation of it. We want to get people together who went there and hear their memories of what was clearly a very special and almost mystical place for a lot of them.

“The idea is to compile an archive which can then form the basis for an exhibition. It is so important that these memories aren’t lost.”

The Peepers night forms part of a broader research project that Christian is involved in and has been funded by the Townscape Heritage Project.

“Friday night is not just for people who went to Peepers but the wider community too,” said Christian.

The event runs from 7pm to 10pm and admission is free. Anyone with any Peepers memories can email Christianjbell.91@gmail.com