The oldest swingers in (Camden) town

So here we are, walking through Camden at 11 o’clock at night, in a surreal kind of haze, rubbing shoulders with the bohos and the young. We’re in a London bubble, away for the weekend and mouths agape at the ever-changing tableau before us.

Mr Grigg comes over all poetic:

‘As I walk along the street

every person that I meet

no-one is older than me.’

Everyone is under twenty five, apart from two drunks in a broken-up phone box.

We wander down to Mornington Crescent tube station, which for years we thought really only existed in the Radio 4 panel game I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. We’re heading for Club Koko, a majestic-looking former theatre and now a music venue for the hip and trendy.

The music hits us, boom, boom, boom, as we make our way through the young throng and head for the tea house downstairs for a nice cuppa.

This, you see, is a sell-out gig by Mr Scruff, a DJ-extraordinaire whose music Wikipedia describes as downtempo, trip-hop and nu-jazz. He is also a huge tea fan. I once let slip to Number One Son that I liked Mr Scruff's music. So he only went and bought us tickets for Christmas.

We are fish, fish, fish out of water. We take our big cups of tea and go upstairs in this glorious baroque-style theatre, which was opened by Ellen Terry in 1900. I feel the spirit of this celebrated actress looking over my shoulder on to an alien world. A pulsating dance floor, Mr Scruff on stage pressing buttons and his naïve cartoons smiling at us from screens at his side.

A smiley-faced student asks if I will take a photo of him and his mates on the balcony overlooking the stage.

From the safety of a comfy seat, I press the shutter. He sidles up to me and says:

‘Um, why are you here..?

I explain the Christmas gift.

‘Are you enjoying it?’ he says.

‘Immensely,’ I say.

He looks across to Mr Grigg, whose arms are folded and whose face is wearing a pugnacious glare.

‘What about him?’ the boy gestures.

‘Oh, yes, we both love Mr Scruff,’ I say. I get the feeling this photo might soon be doing the rounds of Facebook under the title of: ‘The oldest swingers in town’.

I am very tempted to lie and say we love Mr Scruff because we’re his parents. But I don’t and I’m glad I don’t because Mr Scruff is thirty nine which would have made me ten years old when I had him.

It then occurs to me that, actually, if Mr Grigg is the oldest one here and I’m the second oldest, that would make Mr Scruff the third oldest. And these young ‘uns have paid good money to see him.

So Mr Grigg and I slap our tea cups on the table, get up and wobble those legs.

That’s about it.

Love Maddie x