A new era opens as Liverpool's Iron Door revived

Apr 10 2008 by Philip Key, Liverpool Daily Post

LIVERPOOL’S Iron Door club may be no more, but its name lingers on. Today, it is busy organising nostalgia events.

They don’t get much more nostalgic than its latest project, a night devoted to dance music in Liverpool from the 1940s onwards.

It will run the dance gamut from tea dances to rock and roll and features some iconic names from the 1960s.

The man behind the show at the Liverpool Olympia, in West Derby Road, on April 25, is Geoff Hogarth, the man who opened the Iron Door in Temple Street, in 1960, with partner Harry Ormesher.

Ormesher went on to become a newspaper glamour photographer and now breeds racehorses. But Hogarth has retained his love for music.

So Dancing Through the Years is billed as a presentation by “The Original Iron Door Liverpool”.

“It’s one way of keeping the name alive,” he explains.

His idea for the latest promotion came when he was asked to contribute to The Beat Goes On, an exhibition on Liverpool’s music scene planned for the World Museum, Liverpool, from July.

“That’s a static exhibition and I just thought it would be a good idea to have a musical event,” he says.

So Dancing Through the Years was born.

The Iron Door never had tea dances, but the Olympia once did in the days when it was known as the Locarno, Hogarth reports.

So from between 2pm and 4.30pm on April 25, the Olympia will once again host a tea dance, strict tempo dancing with music from the Kenny Clarke Sound (with Clarke on keyboards) and, of course, tea and refreshments.

The main event, Dancing Through the Years, will run between 7pm and 1am covering everything from jazz and skiffle to rock and roll. And customers will be able to dance to the music.

One of the top attractions is jazz trumpeter Kenny Ball. “He was a regular at the club and we would book him in for two nights, either a Friday and Saturday or a Saturday and Sunday.”

Profits from the event will go towards the BBC Radio Merseyside Charitable Trust.

* TICKETS for the tea dance are £3, including refreshments; tickets for Dancing Through the Years, £12. Box office 0151 263 6633.

philkey@dailypost.co.uk