One Night In The Aragon Ballroom - A World War II Moment Imortalised.

I discovered the Wednesday morning flea market located under an open air canopy at the back of an indoor market in a small northwestern English town about six months ago and it has become the highlight of my week, if not life.

I’m not from round these parts and I’ll never get used to being able to just drive somewhere in 20 minutes, not pay a congestion charge for turning your engine on, not getting an automatic penalty charge fine for pulling over and then parking for FREE when you reach your destination, so even the journey there is an endless supply of wins.

The walk from the carpark to the market is always filled with excited expectation with an added edge of lingering UKIP. Despite the slight whiff of Gammon Fascism, I have always had such wonderful warm exchanges with women in the street. Last week I was hugged by one for being the funniest person she’d ever met, while another day I went into the post office and at the counter asked: “Are you Yvonne?” to the great suspicion of all the staff who froze and stared at each other like they do in a Saloon Bar in Western movies when a stranger walks through the swing doors. The lady I asked slowly turned to look at the lady who had just walked in from out the back... “I’m Yvonne” she fessed up tentatively from a standing position in the doorway, hands hovering over her holster. I said: “Oh hai, I’ve just met your mam in the street when I asked for directions to the post office”, which brought the house down with hilarious familiarity, “I’m coming round for tea tonight and moving in at the weekend”. 

The Wild Wild Northwest, England 2019.

Once you get through the lovely ladies, it is a short walk to the Flea and you enter at your own risk (there is no risk) through sliding doors that open the portal to another world filled with past lives, loves lost and loves found, mementos hoarded and houses cleared. I love the controlled chaos and the familiar irregular traders in there regular spaces.

I’m a regular now, but on one of my first visits I spotted an old menu in a box among many boxes all neatly lined up double-deep on tables in a U shape. I can’t tell you what meditative benefits this brings me. I start in the first box, left hand side, facing in, and systematically truffle-snout round in a clockwise direction to the last box. Sometimes you find a thing in one box then it’s matching pair in another. Oooogh Lordy. Nirvana.

Spanish inspired 1940’s graphics - The Aragon Ballroom Menu.

This ARAGON BALLROOM menu though, before I even opened it I was already gowned-up and twirling round the dance floor. The illustrations were beautiful, a mixture of early Cubist Spanish Bistro graphic design and Wild West typography. 

The copy was the best I’d ever read: “Everything that contributes to your comfort and dancing pleasure is provided at the two “wonder ballrooms”. Perfectly appointed lounges for ladies and gentlemen.... scientifically constructed dance floors, cushioned to prevent fatigue...surroundings of enchanting, breath-taking beauty...light refreshments and finest beverages at moderate prices...the most congenial, courteous and refined company...music by America’s outstanding orchestras always.”

I said to the stall holder, “come on, we’re going”, he said “I’ll pick you up” I said “don’t be late, you’re paying. I’ll have the Cherry Smash 15c and a Chop Suey Sundae 25c please. If we go on “Sweet-heart Night” you can cordially invite me for free”. 

Chop Suey Sundae - The Aragon Ballroom Menu.

Chop Suey Sundae turns out to be far more tantalising than it sounds. Inspired by a traditional Chinese desert of ice cream with fried noodles I believe, which sounds delicious, along the lines of ice cream and wafers, and I imagine smothered in a sauce made from raisins and dates, then sprinkled with flaked coconut.

Here’s a quote from The Fortune Cookie Chronicles with a suggested description of a Chop Suey Sundae: “(Sent to me by a reader) So, a chop suey sundae, according to The Food Section which cited an expired recipe from the National Soda Fountain Guide, is a concoction included raisins, dates, vanilla ice cream, flaked coconut, and chow mein noodles.”

The menu itself is wonderful and the history of the Chigago Aragon Ballrom built, in 1926, is fascinating, with it’s (in modern day money), 30 million dollar construction cost, legendary cork-lined sprung dance floor filled with up to 8000 dancers at a time, the stories of underground tunnels supposedly used by Al Capone, but what makes this particular menu special is that the person who was there, who ate that sundae, drank that cherry smash, danced the night away to the swinging big band wrote the day, date and bandleader on the top, then folded it carefully into three to fit it into his inside jacket pocket, or into her handbag to keep as a memento of what could possibly have been their best and possibly last night at home before being shipped out to England during World War 2.

“SUNDAY 15.10.44 ART CASSEL” - Inscription on Aragon Ballroom Menu.

“SUNDAY 15.10.44 BAND ART CASSEL”. On Monday morning they may have been on their way to Europe without their sweetheart or a future. Just the memory of that night in Chicago. 

They may have been to the cinema and witnessed a 19 year old Lauren Bacall make her movie debut in the anti-fascist film “To Have And Have Not”, where she and Humphrey Bogart fall in love off screen and she delivers the legendary, knee-bending, earth-shattering line "You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and ... blow ..."

The film also featured the swing track “Limehouse Blues”, a meaningful song to me as a jazz fan and a resident of Limehouse, London for over ten years, however I was not aware of its significance as a political song in the movie, nor in the French Resistance, as explained on wiki:

“According to Ian Brookes, during the scene where Bacall sings "Am I Blue?" with Hoagy Carmichael, her low-voice establishes herself as "one of the boys" and thus a "soldier" in the anti-fascist cause.[70] Moreover, during this scene, the patrons at the bar represent different races and are racially integrated throughout the space, challenging the ideas of segregation and race during the time period.[71] The next song, Limehouse Blues is reminiscent of Django Reinhardt's pre-war version. This represents French resistance spirit, as swing music became a symbol of resistance in France, because it was the only available example of American culture in France at the time”

Art Kassel was a prolific saxophonist during the Swing Era in Chicago, and a staple bandleader at the Aragon. The Swing Era was coming to an end in 1944, due to union rules and the introduction of the entertainers tax, but that night he may have lead the orchestra in a version of that year’s most popular song; Bing Crosby’s “Swinging On A Star”, and the number one song that week; Dinah Shore’s heart-wrenching, timely performance of the agony of separation in “I’ll Walk Alone”.

How this menu ended up here, now, I don’t know, but with almost another year to go before the end of the war, I can only speculate as to what became of our American Lady or Gentleman who carried it as a memory with them in their old kit bag, but I’m taking an unrealistically optimistic route and I’ve decided that 76 years ago an Anglo-GI baby was made, left a treasured leaflet as a keepsake of Daddy and is now comfortably swinging on their own star.