Middleton’s only ‘club’ for teenagers in the sixties was The Limit, situated above a shop at 16 Wood Street.

The club was opened on 15 November 1963, a joint venture between brothers David and Philip Aaronson, Stanley Forman and Harvey Livingstone who, it was stated by the Middleton Guardian, "would be waiting to welcome the town's moderns" - the formal name for mods.

The band booked for the opening night was The Four Just Men (named after a popular television series of the time) with Demetrius Christopholus on lead vocals. I think they were originally from Liverpool although they were a big draw in the Manchester area around this time. On the nights there was no live music a ‘Disc Jockey’ played records from the top twenty charts.

The Limit opened its doors at 7.30pm until 11.30pm every night of the week for members and non-members alike.

Membership was two shillings and six pence (12½p in today’s money) the entrance fee was four shillings for members and five shillings for non-members, which would be 20p and 25p respectively. A night out in Middleton with the woman of your dreams could run into ten bob (50p) depending on the number of Cokes she drank. I knew there was a reason they were called the good old days.

The decor in the club was stark black walls with black and a white ceiling imitating a zebra crossing. The walls were lined with red leather bus seats and the lighting was courtesy of Belisha Beacons and red danger lamps usually used on road works. The piece-de-resistance was a set of traffic lights, reputed to have cost £100, that stood at the side of the stage.

Scattered randomly around the walls and from the ceiling were various warning signs from, ‘No Cycling’ to ‘No Waiting’, etc.

There were probably more road signs in The Limit than in the centre of Middleton.

The Limit boasted an American hotdog maker and like most other clubs of its day only sold soft drinks - coke, tea and coffee - although quite a few of the lads bought a bottle of Bulmers cider or called in the pub on the way for a drop of Dutch courage. Doing The Twist was not something that came naturally to the young studs of Middleton and a drop of lubrication was always a help. Many a local teenager found love in the confines of The Limit; I for one met my first love on the stairs leading up to the club.

An interesting aside was an advert for Mack The Tailor, also of Wood Street, wishing The Limit success. He mentions credit terms and ‘club cheques taken.’ The ‘club cheque’ was a moneylender's guarantee made out for an agreed amount that was accepted by most of the shops in the town. Each establishment subtracted their purchase price leaving the subtotal to be spent at other retail outlets. The moneylender covered the sale, which the borrower repaid on a weekly basis at a large rate of interest - an early form of higher purchase.