Express & Star

How it all began for The Fizzogs

Black Country comics The Fizzogs, also well-known as The Dancing Grannies, write in today's Express & Star

Published
The Fizzogs performing in Stourbridge

The life and times of Fizzogs Dancing Grannies. Well, you’re probably wondering how it all started, this dancing malarkey.

Well me (Letty), Hilda and May all met back in 1940 summat. We started dancing and just never stopped really. It’s like the music takes hold of your body and you just cor seem to control it!

There was a time when we gave up for a while, back in the 90s I think it was.

May was going through her second bout of the menopause. The doctors called her The Menopausal Miracle and she was taking that much HRT, her went up four bra sizes. It day stop the hot flushes though, her still had to change her knickers five times a day, and it wor fair to keep showering the audience with her sweat.

Mind you, it would have been great in our breakdancing days in the 80s when she used to spin on her head, but not in the 90s! As soon as Madchester came on the scene you couldn’t even mention the words ‘pop n lock’.

Hilda unfortunately damaged her Hercules heel in a near fatal abseiling accident.

She was trying to raise money for Save the Donkeys but the instructors couldn’t fit the safety harness around her wide pelvis.

In the end they just wrapped the rope round her a few times and let her loose. Well, the inevitable happened day it... her somehow unravelled herself half way down and fell 20ft.

Thankfully the rope caught around her ankle and left her dangling upside down until the fire brigade came to rescue her.

Her refused to leave the house for four months afterwards.

Not because she couldn’t walk, it was because she was more embarrassed about the burst capillaries on her face after being stuck upside down for two hours and the fact that she’d forgotten to put her girdle on and her skirt was covering her head. The people of Darlaston got more than they bargained for that day I tell ya!

As for me, well I just got fat! I know it’s hard to believe when you see me now because I’ve got a figure like Marilyn Monroe.

Back then it was a different story though, I tried every diet going – The Atkins, The Cambridge, The Cabbage Soup, The C Food diet, where you can only eat things beginning with the letter C – like cake, chips, crisps, chocolate, surprisingly nothing worked.

The final straw came when I got stuck in the Black Hole, you know, the ride at Alton Towers.

I couldn’t get out of the seat so they had to shut it down and call emergency services. It wor too bad though, at least they bought me some fries and a burger while I was waiting.

That was it though, I knew I needed to dance again!

So I got the girls back together and a singer called Flo Rida released a song called ‘Low’ and there was no stopping us, WE WERE BACK!!

The Dancing Grannies are a gang of Black Country elderly ladies who like to get down and boogie wherever they please.