It's just after lunchtime on a warm sunny afternoon in Belle Vale and tucked away from the main road is the St Cyril's social club.
While it is a quiet Thursday outside, inside a group of pensioners are having the time of their lives dancing to Roy Orbison with ‘Jive Teddy’ at the helm. The Happy Memories club afternoons are part of a Merseyside project that aims to combat loneliness and isolation and has become a "lifeline" for many of it's members.
It was started in 2018 by friends Peter Bowyer and Ted ‘Jive Teddy’ Williams and despite the pandemic, it has quickly become an institution for the older generation across the area with people travelling miles so they don't miss a "smashing afternoon" of live entertainment, dance, bingo, raffles and food. Now with four locations every month across Merseyside, the concept has already helped people get socially active again as friends, new and old, get together for an afternoon of entertainment and a singalong as their fond memories come flooding back.
