ROCK ’n’ roll is here to stay – and that’s proved by one couple who are keeping the old tunes very much alive.

Alison Armitage not only loves the music, but she adores the fashions too.

In fact not many women in their 50s have a wardrobe full of circle skirts and petticoats.

But then it’s probably fair to say that not many women of that age would look as good as 52-year-old Alison from Grange Moor does in the iconic garments of the rock and roll era.

With their nipped-in waists and puffed-up petticoats, circle skirts were made for Alison – quite literally.

Rock and roll brought Alison and her partner Stuart Marsden together.

The couple met at The Ritz Ballroom in Brighouse – a venue that hosts regular themed music and dance evenings.

“I asked him to dance,” says Alison, who is a secretary for a Brighouse company.

Stuart, 65, says he learned rock and roll moves as a teenager at his local youth club.

“I was a bit of a teddy boy, wearing beetle crushers, fluorescent socks and a drape jacket,” he said. “I’ve always loved the music.”

Alison, however, was a latecomer to rock and roll.

“It was only about six years ago,’’ she said. “I had been recently divorced and went to a nightclub in Wetherby where they were dancing rock and roll.

“Men were asking me to dance but I couldn’t do it so I had to turn them down.

“In the end I decided to take lessons and really enjoyed it.”

The couple now go to two or even three rock and roll events a week.

They travel to venues as far afield as Bolton, Preston, Wakefield and Derbyshire.

Although there are events to be found more locally in Elland, Brighouse and Halifax, they say Huddersfield is not a rock and roll town.

As well as creating her own outfits for dancing, Alison also customises shirts for Stuart with iconic images of rock and roll era legends such as Elvis and Marilyn Monroe.

They like to turn out in matching outfits – and Alison even prints images on her skirts. She says it is these that get the most admiration from fellow dancers.

While an energetic dance form, both Alison and Stuart say rock and roll tends to attract the 50 plus age group and they wonder if it will survive.

“We have tried ballroom dancing and went for lessons because we wanted to be able to do something else,” said Alison. “But we just couldn’t do it.”

What is it they love about rock and roll?

“It’s the music, you’ve just got to move when you hear it,” says Stuart. “You can’t resist it.”

When she first took up rock and roll, former line dancer Alison had her skirts specially made by a seamstress in Leeds.

And then Stuart suggested she might have a go at creating some herself.

“He said it didn’t make much sense buying the fabric, driving all the way to Leeds to have it made up, paying her £10 and then driving all the way back to collect it,” says Alison. “But I had never used a sewing machine in my life and I didn’t have a clue what to do.

“Stuart bought me a sewing machine and I didn’t even take it out of the box. Then one day he took it out and threaded it up for me. I ran some scrap material through it and that was it, I was off.”

Since that day, three years ago, Alison has not only made more than 20 circle skirts for her own use, she has also sewn them on request for other dancers. Encouraged by her success at making the relatively simple skirts, which are sewn, as the name implies, from a circle of fabric, she also attempted the more difficult net underskirts after Stuart invested in an overlocking machine.

“There was a lot of trial and error,” said Alison. “But it’s really quite simple. Just yards of net cut into strips and sewn together.

“It’s more time consuming than anything.”

To Alison’s surprise, her skirts, for which she charges between £20 and £30, sell on ebay and have been snapped up by buyers from as far away as Honolulu and Australia.

“But I wouldn’t want to make them full time,” she says. “I can make one and then I’ve had enough for a while. It can be quite boring because there’s lots of sewing in straight lines. I worked it out that I had sewn 48 metres of lace to the hem of one petticoat!”

Tomorrow we’re featuring a devotee of the 40s and 50s who is designing reproduction vintage clothes using original patterns.