As the organ music starts, Frank Smith pulls his wife Betty out onto the dance floor and twirls her around.

Crowds of pensioners watch closely as the couple glide around the floor showing the latest moves.

As Frank and Betty perform the final turn the audience burst into a round of applause and take to the dance floor themselves to copy the steps they have just seen.

“We have around 40 people come to the afternoon tea dancing and they love it,” says Frank, aged 81, from Walsall, who runs the sessions at Willenhall Leisure Centre.

“We got into dancing when we were in our 20s through our daughter Lydia who started having lessons in old-time dancing. We have been coming to Willenhall to run tea dances now for 40 years.

“Around 30 years ago I achieved a qualification with the International Dance Teachers Association and Betty took hers with the UK Association. We have also joined the International Sequence Dance Circle Association in Kidderminster and that is where we hear about the latest dances.”

Betty says new dances come out every month through competitions. “After every competition, scripts are issued giving details of the moves and then we teach them at the tea dances,” she says.

Elizabeth and Dennis Statham from Bloxwich have been going to tea dances for 18 years. Elizabeth, aged 71, says: “Every week we are taught new dances and it is a good way of getting people out.”

Marjorie Wake, aged 81, from Tipton, says: “I love tea dancing for the exercise. It keeps your brain active as well.”

Edna Dobson, aged 74, and Stan Turner, aged 84, met at a tea dance. Stan says: “Edna and I have been friends for a long time and it is good to have a companion to go out with.”

John and June Jones, both 75, from Wednesbury had their first dance as teenagers at Willenhall Leisure Centre.

“I went to a dance and I stood on the balcony looking down at June who was by the dance floor with her friends,” he says. “I asked her for a dance – it was the foxtrot – and we have been dancing ever since.”