Going to the Palais

In the early twentieth century, Britain was ‘dance mad’ (p. 1). What had started as an activity for the middle and upper classes was, by the early 1930s, a mass popular cultural pursuit. Neither the economic depression of the inter-war years nor the ravages of the Second World War could dampen the enthusiasm of Britons for dancing. In fact, during the height of the Depression in the early 1930s, even more dance halls were opened up and down the country and more people took up dancing. During the Second World War, despite initial challenges such as the closure of places of public entertainment during the first weeks of wartime, the restrictions of the blackout, and the regular threat of aerial bombardment, dancing actually boomed—and, by 1942, was ‘more popular than it had been before the war’ (p. 52). Dancing continued throughout the austerity of the immediate post-war years and growing affluence of the 1960s, increasing in popularity to the extent that this period is now considered the ‘golden age’ of social dancing in Britain

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