IT wasn't quite Strictly Come Dancing but youngsters wearing roller skates were ready to try out their best dance moves in Furness back in 1994.

The venue was Barrow's Park Leisure Centre for a roller disco which The Mail, on Tuesday, August 16, said was arranged as part of summer school holiday events.

Among those showing off their balance and their skating skills was Natalie Couling, Katie Miller and Louise Rooney.

The Mail, on October 26 in 1990, said roller skates featured in a school fundraising event.

It noted: “Junior schoolchildren hoping to raise £1,000 for computer equipment took skateboards and roller boots to school for a sponsored walk with a difference.

“Some 180 children from Sir John Barrow School, Ulverston, ran, jogged, skipped and skated around playgrounds all afternoon to help school funds.”

Roller disco became very popular the 1970s after skates featured in Hollywood movies such as were Skatetown U.S.A., Roller Boogie and Olivia Newton-John’s Xanadu.

They also featured in The Unholy Rollers, Kansas City Bomber, Rollerball and Rollerblade

The enthusiasm continued into the1980s with leg warmers and neon Lycra outfits being the order of the day.

Celebrities such as Cher, Patrick Swayze and Brooke Shields were all photographed in roller skates and led to others following the craze.

The first roller skate are thought to have been created in Holland in the early 1700s.

The first recorded use of roller skates in Britain was in 1743 when they were used as part of a London stage show.

In 1760 inventor Joseph Merlin rolled into a masquerade party playing a violin.

His dramatic entrance went wrong when he crashed into a large mirror, breaking the glass, his violin and a few bones.

In 1863 American inventor James Leonard Plimpton patented a four-wheeled roller skate that was capable of turning easily in a circle.

Plimpton opened the first roller skating rinks in New York and Rhode Island.

They were promoted as family-friendly health and fitness venues and grew in popularity.

There was a British craze for indoor roller skating. Both Ulverston, in The Ellers, and Barrow, at The Strand, had roller skating rinks.