From putting on your best dress, pleading with your parents to decorate your face with the brightest, prettiest colour eyeshadow you could find and ransacking the house for pennies to spend at the sweet stand, disco has always been a profound memory of youth for all. The excitement that would permeant all school children the day of the disco is likely still a vivid memory even for adults. 

Yet the excitement is dying as children become more drawn in by the wonders of tablets and phones and mobile games rather than the experiences available to them in the real world with real people. 

In Kelvedon village, where there’s a large population of primary school age children, some adults are taking this modern issue into their own hands. 

They are doing so by – on the first Friday of every month – renting out a large room in the local Labour Club as a space for disco between seven and nine o’clock. They open it up to wide ranges of ages from school years four to nine meaning its open for anyone to get involved, part and let themselves be children – a feat that is difficult to achieve in such a modernised society. 

Children are required to pay a small fee of £3 on entry as well as provide a contact number in case of any issues that may occur, such as them wanting to come home early. 

One child, Pearl Murray, a regular attendee, says it’s “like a party every month” and she really enjoys “meeting [her] friends there” and eating all the “really delicious sweets.” She appears to really enjoy going, “begging [her] mum” every month to have her friends round her house after school to “get ready to party.”

The youth disco goes all out on the special events of the year – such as Christmas – with all children attending the disco near the event being granted a raffle ticket with the potential to win a range of prizes from chocolate too cuddly toys. 

Youth discos such as this are great ways of keeping kids young and ensuring they share at least some of the experiences of a less modernised youth.