It's that time of year again, when young girls everywhere dress up in their ball gowns and tiaras and are whisked away in a limousine to the school prom.
In the 1980s the first time we even heard of a prom was in the Molly Ringwald movie Pretty in Pink. Until then a prom was something you strolled down at the seaside, and it definitely had nothing to do with limos and pink dresses.
Our versio
n of the prom was the Fifth Year Leaving Disco in 1986. It was held in the school hall, with no decorations that I remember; sunlight streaming in through the gaps in the curtains; and food served on the same tables we used at lunchtime – with paper plates and no table cloths in sight.
There were no ball gowns either. Instead I seem to remember that I wore a bright yellow mini skirt over bright yellow leggings; a yellow, flowery T-shirt and – you guessed it – yellow earrings.
My shoes were white flatties which I had been able to get cheap because I worked as a Saturday girl in the local shoe shop. What a stunner I must have been!
The disco was provided by the man who also DJd for our school youth club, and with his help we managed to kick up a storm to the likes of Madness, UB40 and The Police.
Nowadays the boys all go to the prom looking as though they've just stepped out of a Cinderella fairytale. In the 1980s there were no Prince Charmings to speak of. Instead there were those who wore jeans with cheap shirts and skinny leather ties, or the occasional Miami Vice reject wearing white chinos, no socks and pink T-shirts under their nylon suit jackets. Of course there were always those who bucked the trend: The school geeks who wore pin-striped suits and carried a briefcase at the grand age of 16. Those were normally the kind of boys who tried to dance with me at the end of the night, much to my dismay.
While our leavers' discos and parties may not have been up to the standard of the proms of today, we still had fun and lots of laughs.
The records may have jumped; the special effects may have consisted of a disco ball on a string, but the atmosphere was electric. And while the Cinderellas of today may have pink limousines to carry them home, I had my dad in his blue Ford Orion, who always made sure I was home before midnight!
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