Happy memories of skating at Sheffield's Silver Blades ice rink

The popular ITV show sees celebrities go on a journey from none or little skating ability to putting on an entertaining performance to be proud of.

To me, this year has to me quite an impressive line up with stars including Colin Jackson, Myleene Klass and Jason Donovan taking to the ice.

I can skate at 55, I’ve not been to a rink for 20 years but am quite confident I can still do it.

I may not be Christopher Dean, Ben Roethlisberger or Maurkice Pouncey, but I know I can traverse the rink without landing on my bum.

Why is that - you may ask? Well, when I was a child ,back in the early seventies some schools in Sheffield would give discounted tickets to lucky pupils, for entrance to Silver Blades skating rink.

My sister June always came home with discounted tickets during the school holidays, enabling us all to go.

Silver Blades, situated on Queens Road, was owned by Mecca and opened in 1965.

I was never frightened of the ice and was quite confident. For some reason, I was never afraid of falling.

After all it wasn’t Sutherland road baths, there was no chance of drowning – which is something I was fearful of on my first visit there.

Although you could get as equally wet at the rink, there was no deep end at the rink.

Confidence is the key to skating, I believe, if you’re continually concentrating on falling, you will.

I was keen to go with no fear, I loved our winters when we used to get black ice in the school yard, this to me was just an extension of that.

I remember skipping up the stairs and getting my hire skates, indigo plastic affairs fit for purpose that definitely weren’t going to get pinched.

They were not embarrassing at all, because nearly everyone else had them.

So round and round we went. The more confident you were, the further you would move away from the barrier.

The first thing you had to do was tie your bottoms nice and tight, as you would any other pair of boots.

I saw loads with the boots so loosely tied enabling people to amble along on their insteps, blades out to the side.

As the days and weeks went by my confidence skill improved with falls becoming less frequent, so skating now held concerns for me like the fabled severance of fingers if you fell down.

For those who felt brave enough, there was a speed session halfway through the session where speed was the name of the game.

Going around and around in an anticlockwise direction as fast as you could with appropriate music blaring over the speakers.

It felt quite exciting at the time.

When the session was done we’d hand back our lovely boots and go for a not very nice hot chocolate to warm up on chilly days.

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