Durrington Working Men’s Club
Tuesday night at the Honey Hush Club and Colin Tenn on the decks mixes classic Elvis with lesser-known tracks, making judicious choices about tempo, era, danceability. Many people made the effort to dress up vintage: anything from 1940s style wide-leg pants – so conveniently back in high-street fashion this summer – through denim dungarees (aren’t they fantastically hot to dance in, you wonder) and, naturally, several circular skirts. Nobody’s wearing net petticoats because this is, after all, only a midweek casual hop. Many menfolk have jeans that look like they’re fresh-bought from the shop just tonight – how do they manage that? Hawaian shirts a-plenty light up the dancefloor and give the lively-print frocks a run for their money. Everyone seems to have interesting shoes. It’s beautifully easy to talk to people here in this massively inter-generational space – folks are friendly and are also keen to help newbies learn or practice. Especially the stroll: a trip-stumble mess of wrong direction turns and too-many kicks when you first attempt, but smoothly automatic once it’s embedded into your legs and you switch off the mind. Is Worthing the new Brighton? Maybe some people want it to to be, but naaaah, not really. It’s something far more interesting.
Lee Milner is a prize-winning photographer working around the Worthing area and can be contacted on 07799940944.