Paul Heaton from The Beautiful South and The Housemartins has been recalling memories of St Columba’s youth club in a BBC radio documentary.
In today’s The First Time With…Paul Heaton programme on BBC 6 Music, the singer-songwriter described the youth club disco at St Columba’s on Manchester Road as the location of one of his first musical memories:
“My brother and his mates were allowed to go and I was under 12 at the time so wasn’t allowed in. Me and my middle brother sneaked to the edge of the door and looked underneath it. They were playing The Jean Genie by David Bowie.
“At the time wooden stacked heels were in fashion. My brother and his mates were all doing this dance, banging their stack heels on the floor. It was unbelievable. The noise of them banging their stack heels was louder than the music itself.”
You can listen again to the programme for seven days. St Columba’s is mentioned around 2 minutes, 45 seconds in.
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I used to DJ at St Columba’s Youth Club between 1973-1988 every Friday night both at the juniors club and seniors. The Youth club had legendary status with youngsters from all areas of Sheffield back in the 70’s and early 80’s. School girls would discuss all week what outfits they were going to wear on Friday night.
I remember leaving out of the back window as often as the front doors, due to threats and problems with a number of regulars.
My mum and dad used to run the juniors then I took over for years after that until it closed due to lack of help xx