A Salford group is helping to unite a community through the medium of dance.
The Lower Kersal Young People and Community Group hosts a weekly line dancing group, with the aim to help the community have fun, exercise and socialise.
The group was able to initially start by receiving funding from the Health Improvement Team, this continued for a couple of years until they have been able to fund their own sessions.
It meets every Thursday evening from 7pm to 8.30pm at Saint Aidan’s Church. It costs £3 to dance and just £1 for spectators.
Group member Lesley Lever has been line dancing for around two decades. She said: “I used to go to a line dancing class at the Kersal club, and the two ladies who run it, they retired.
“There was no line dancing in the area anymore. So when I came here, my husband, Tommy, he said ‘why don’t you start your own line dancing group?'”
Mrs Lever ran and taught the group for the first 13 weeks, but over the years they’ve been able to acquire two different line dance tutors.
Mrs Lever said: “You’ve got your grapevine, you’ve got like a left grapevine, a right grapevine, and you’ve got your kickball change.
“I don’t think there’s any more than about eight different steps, but it’s when you’re putting them together.”
Their current instructor Helen Houghton said: “It’s camaraderie learning to dance. They like the music, they like having a chat, it’s just community spirit.”
The group has gone from strength to strength over the years. At most, it has around 36 people, with new members joining every year.
This group is very important for many of the members, and it creates a great sense of community.
Mrs Lever said: “It’s socialising, people just like to come and chat and even if they don’t want to dance.
“I think it’s really important and we do like if it’s anyone’s special birthday, you know, 60th, 70th, 80th, 90th. Once we had three people, one was 40, one was 70, one was 80. One had a daughter-in-law who was into making cakes.
“And I said, can you make me a cake which is something to do with Country and Western? And it was built like a hat, I sent the pictures and she had the pictures of each person on this cake. It was just absolutely amazing.
“We have been talking about having a beginners class but we don’t turn away beginners.
“Some people who come can’t dance and they just pick it up. But some people they just don’t get it. So we are thinking of just doing it like probably an hour before the seven o’clock.”
If you would like to know more details, please go to the Lower Kesal Young People and Community Group website.
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