PICTURE the scene. The mirrored globe, suspended from the ceiling of the dance hall, is gently revolving in the gleam of a spotlight, sending out small beams like a shower of stars. The sprung floor is a-swish with soft-soled ballroom shoes and the band is going through its strict-tempo repertoire.

It's a memory that lives forever with more senior customers of this column who fondly recall the halcyon days of the waltz, quickstep and tango, when St Helens and its surrounding districts had dance venues -- from ballrooms to humble parish hops -- by the dozen.

A pensioner reader from St Albans Close, Haydock, who, wishes to be referred to as 'Emjay', is among the countless ankle-flickers of yesteryear who love to reminisce about those carefree times.

She can look back to immediate pre-war years when she attended the beginners' class in the Oddfellows Hall, Parr, run by Elsie Morgan, who was something of a local legend among teenagers who craved to master the intricacies of the slow foxtrot and valeta. It also, of course, gave 'em a good excuse to share a romantic embrace.

Says Emjay: "What a good teacher Miss Morgan was. I was 15 when I began but took to dancing like a duck to water".

When she'd mastered a few steps, Emjay was allowed by her mother to attend socials in the Christ Church hall at Haydock -- "as long as I was escorted by my elder brother and the young lady he was courting". Chaperoning had not quite fizzzled out in the Haydock of 1937.

Those social evenings were mixtures of dancing with an occasional party game thrown in, and were aimed at a wide age group.

From time to time, there was a full-scale formal ball in the Haydock senior school (now Haydock High, but then almost unversally referred to as 'the New School'). "We all wore long dresses and thought we represented the height of sophistication", Emjay recalls.

There was always a master of ceremonies, resplendent in dinner suit and black bow-tie, to announce the various dances and to organise the 'sets of eight' for combined dances such as the lancers and cotillions.

"Those two Victorian dances were wonderful", sighs Emjay, "but I never got to learn them properly because the 1939-45 war came, spoiling so many innocent pleasures".

No alcohol was served, but light refreshments and soft drinks were available in the school's domestic science rooms during the interval, when the band of Jack Kitts ("another Haydock luminary") took a breather.

Those school-hall dances continued for a while after the war. "I then went there with my husband; and (unlike today) there was never any rowdyism, fighting or vandalism".

Emjay also recalls that the Masonic Hall in St Helens used to stage dances open to the general public, and there were weekly hops in Haydock Conservative Club. "They had just a pianist and drummer there to supply the music, but kept the beat OK".

Our ballroom queen of bygone times admits that she was dancing mad as a teenager. "I'd have gone every night if I'd been allowed to". And she certainly had plenty to go at, including Holy Cross parish hall, St Helens, and Ashton Pro, just a bus ride away from Emjay's home.

Sadly, her joints are not up to it any more. "But if it wasn't for my arthritis I'd be dancing still. I rather fancy that line-dancing. It reminds me of the square-dancing craze of the 1950s, when we had a caller to chant out all the moves . . .'Swing your partner to the left' . . . 'Do-se-do' . . . and all that stuff!"

THANKS, Emjay for waltzing us back in time.