Yee-ha!

Line-dancers stay fit and healthy by having fun

Club Call highlights the hard work by community organisations in and around Oldham. In the latest, reporter BEATRIZ AYALA heads to Mossley and finds out about Aileen’s All Stars line-dancing group.

KICK up your heels and mosey on down to Mossley for a lesson in line-dancing.

Aileen Wood (75), from Scouthead, is a qualified dance teacher and has spent the past 10 years showing her students all the latest line-dancing steps.

Mrs Wood joined the club as a student when it was formed 11 years ago. After just a year, the teacher moved away and asked Mrs Wood to take charge.

She said: “I’ve been dancing since I was eight. I have run my own ballet and tap school, and have choreographed dances.

“Learning new steps is easy for me and when I used to attend the classes, I’d go home and write out the dance steps to learn them properly.

“As a teacher, I teach members all the popular dances and new ones which I pick up from a monthly line-dancing magazine.

“I put the moves to my own music so we can be dancing to Elvis, Rod Stewart and Shania Twain in one class.”

Mrs Wood said class members range from people in their forties to their eighties, most of them retired.

The class is friendly and welcoming, and is looking for new members.

Mrs Wood said: “Line-dancing is great exercise for the body and the mind as you are always learning new routines.

“A lot of members have been told to take up exercise by their doctors and what better way to get fit than to dance.”

The group meets every Tuesday (10.15-11.30am) at George Lawton Hall, Mossley, and costs £2.

Hour-long sessions are also held at St Edward’s Church, Lees, on Tuesday afternoons, with start times alternating between 1.15pm and 2.30pm.

For more information call 0161-633 5428.