A large proportion of northern soul's original audience came from the mod movement. Some mods started to embrace the freakbeat and psychedelic rock of the late 1960s, but other mods - especially those in northern England - stuck to the original mod soundtrack of soul and blue beat. Some mods transformed into what would eventually be the skinheads, and others formed the basis of the northern soul scene. Early northern soul fashion included bowling shirts, button-down Ben Sherman shirts, blazers with centre vents and unusual numbers of buttons, Trickers brogue shoes, baggy trousers or shrink-to-fit Levi's jeans. Many dancers wore badges representing membership to clubs organised by dance halls.

The first nightclub that effectively defined the northern soul sound was Manchester's Twisted Wheel Club. Other early clubs were the The Mojo in Sheffield, The Catacombs in Wolverhampton, Golden Torch in Stoke, Room at the Top in Wigan, the Wigan Casino, the Blackpool Mecca and Va Va's in Bolton. The music reached its peak of popularity in the mid to late 1970s, when Wigan Casino was voted the world's number one discotheque. Thousands of people visited every week, but the exclusive and underground appeal of the music was lost and many of the hardcore soul fans drifted away. When Wigan Casino shut down in 1981, many believed the northern soul scene was about to end. However, the 1970s mod revival and the later scooterboy subculture produced a new wave of fans.

The 1980s — often dismissed as a low period for the northern soul scene by those who had left in the 1970s — featured almost 100 new venues in places as diverse as Bradford, London, Peterborough, Leighton Buzzard, Whitchurch, Coventry and Leicester. Pre-eminent among the 1980s venues were Stafford's Top of the World and London's 100 Club. Previously, most of the songs played at northern soul clubs had been fast stompers by American blacks, but 1980s northern soul DJs began to add mid-tempo tunes, slower ballads and songs by non-African-American acts such as Gale Garnett.

In the begining there were discos and dances at the local youth club village hall. They were places where girls danced around their handbags boys huddled in groups watching. Waiting for the end of the night, when hopefully the opportunity would arise to walk one of the girls home.

The urge to dance grew, look at the benifits. But boys didn't dance! To hell with it. With considerable help from the girls, the art of dancing, if that's what you call total unco-ordinated movement, was mastered. The sounds of the day Hamilton Bohannon, KC and the Sunshine band, Fatback band etc.

Then a short while after, at a Saturday night disco at the village hall, some newcomers arrived. Baggy high wasteband trousers, full length leather coats,bowling shirts splayed shoes. These guys were cool And they new it, so did the girls. Some of them carried small black boxes, which were handed over to the DJ. What happened next I was totally unprepared for, and the following few hours would change my life forever.

Their appearance forced me into retreat to the back half of the hall. Then in between The Sweet Shawadywady and the Rubettes came a new sound. Although a somewhat familier sound, something along the lines of what my sister had played when I was a child, it was a new exciting sound. The dance floor cleared, and the newcomers took to the floor. Stomping, shuffling, back drops, front drops, spinning, clapping, high kicks, low kicks all in perfect time to the music. The driving beat of the music and wailing vocals seemed to compliment the dancing so well, or was it the other way around? All my senses were going into meltdown.

The tracks being played at the time were Out on the floor - Dobie Gray, The Snake - Al Wilson, Needle in a Haystack - Velvelettes, Tell me it's just a rumour baby - The Isley Brothers.

This music, the dancing, this was for me, I wanted to be like them, and I wanted people to look at me the way I was looking at them.