Enjoy a swinging vintage night out

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.

Suzi-Q Supper Club, William IV, Shepherdess Walk, N1 (020 3119 3012), 7.30pm to 1am, £5. Held monthly, with the next dance on Saturday, 13 December.

Five other retro nights

Beautiful And The Damned
This underground venue holds fabulous Twenties-themed nights.
Third Thursday of the month, Boogaloo, Archway Road, N6 (020 8340 2928), 7pm to 12.30am, free before 8.30pm, £3 after.

Fitzrovia Radio Hour
Watch a live radio comedy play with authentic Twenties microphones. Third Sunday of the month, Swan@The Globe, New Globe Walk, SE1 (020 7928 9444), 7.30pm until 1am, free.

Prohibition
Party like it's 1922 at this revival of the age of prohibition.
Tomorrow, meet at 40 Liverpool Street, EC2, to be transported to a secret destination (020 7636 8228), 8pm, £15.

Tango Tea
Tango at the venue where it all began more than 50 years ago. Every other month, The Waldorf Hilton, Aldwych, WC2 (020 7836 2400), 2pm to 5pm, £55.

1940s Blitz Party
Hosts hand out ration books and the venue is decked out with gas masks and blackout curtains.
Last Saturday of the month, Bourne & Hollingsworth, 28 Rathbone Place, W1 (020 7636 8228), 8.30pm to 1am, free.