Enjoy a swinging vintage night out

The room is filled with young folk, dressed to impress and eagerly getting to know one another without inhibition. I find myself standing opposite a tall, handsome chap wearing a trilby hat. He asks my name before taking me in his grasp. "Your wrist shouldn't be too limp," he offers helpfully before swinging me under his arm.

It's unusual to be at a central London pub where complete strangers are mingling with one another as if they are bosom buddies. How can this be? The reason is lindy hop, a jazzy, Forties-style swing dance that came over to the UK with the American GIs during the Second World War.

Compared with the stiff ballroom dancing that was the norm back then, it was the most exciting thing since sliced bread.

And after watching Rachel Stevens's bouncy jive on Strictly Come Dancing, it still seems pretty exciting. I was determined to learn how to
jitterbug, swing and boogie-woogie with style.

After all, if the lovely Rachel isn't too cool to do sugar pushes, side passes and swing outs, then neither am I.

The London Swing Dance Society hosts regular nights of lessons, dances and competitions.

Tonight's is the Suzi-Q Supper Club, which takes place each month at the King William IV Pub in Islington. My friends and I are dressed up to the nines. I am sporting a beige silky dress and have spent an obscene amount of time in front of the mirror with a tin of hairspray trying to style my hair in "victory rolls" like glamorous Forties movie star Veronica Lake. Other women are sporting quiffs and headscarves. Guys are in braces, trilbies and bow ties. Organiser Simon Selmon is wearing a fabulous red "zoot suit" and if someone were to pass by the window, they might think we were filming a scene from Goodnight Sweetheart.

We get there early for the obligatory dance lesson before the night gets under way. The girls stand in a circle facing the men on the outside and after trying a couple of moves they are encouraged to rotate to the next guy. We have to sway two three, turn two three, reverse, turn, two three — which means we spin and then spin back again before we have time to go 360 degrees.

By the end of the lesson I am armed with three moves and a good idea of the rhythm required for swing dance. The music is the type of thing you hear in war movie scenes when the soldiers go to a dance on their night off. Then a guy asks me to dance and I feel like I am actually in one of those romantic war movies.

The dance moves are actually pretty easy to follow and it's a real buzz to be led across the floor like the women of old. It's a bright, bouncy dance which is easy to do if you have any kind of rhythm. At this stage everyone is madly spinning, kicking and jitterbugging with abandon.

But after the glorious feeling of being asked to dance, I soon end up hanging at the bar with the rest of my pals hoping someone else will approach me. No one does and I wonder if it is utterly bad form to ask a man to dance. "Stuff it, it's not the Forties," I tell myself. "I wonder if you can teach me some more moves?" I ask the man in the trilby with whom I danced in the lesson.

With charm and confidence, he spins me round the floor while giving me tips on my technique. What a gent. As he disappears into the night, I wonder if he really has got a war to go to and is off to battle in the morning.

But then I'm snapped out of my retro reverie when we step outside and the taxi queue reminds me I am firmly in 2008.