Dave's skate adventures - history of region's popular roller disco

There was a cafe, bar, arcade and a rink with a DJ booth perched over it.

It was simply the place to be. It was home to first crushes - the main chat up line was the class act, 'will you skate with me?' - many sprained wrists, and one cringe-worthy moment when the ultra violet lights made my bra glow like it was plugged into the mains.

But above all else, it was about the skating and having fun. It really didn't matter where we did it, as long as we could skate.

For one Wrexham man, roller skating became more than a hobby, and his creation went on to be the foundation of great memories for so many people across the region.

Dave’s Roller Disco was the brainchild of Dave Sumpter, 73.

Here he picks up the story of how the business came to be...

My engineering days came to an end back in 1981 when the whole of the UK was in a deep recession.

With a mortgaged house, wife and three young children, I had to think of ways to earn an income to avoid government aid to support us.

Being a gymnastic coach, I enjoyed working with children of all ages. This helped me think of something Wrexham did not have in entertainment that would also earn an income.

Newspaper cuttings collected by Dave Sumpter about his roller skating business.

You can see from just some of the newspaper stories, the hard and expensive fight I had to establish a roller skating venue in our town.

With just 50 pairs of roller skates, a hired disco set-up and rented small but long room under Wrexham baths, I opened our first Roller Disco session on May 29, 1982, and became the first UK person to create a 'mobile roller disco'.

The weekend sessions became so popular, we had the tiled floor constantly lifting and I would have to quickly stick them down with rapid evostick, what an issue this was.

Children often booked in for the entire day and I allowed individuals to go and purchase a fish and chips for their dinner. I best described the venue like a youth club on wheels.

The council were quick to see that my roller skating sessions was a success. I proved to all those doubting councillors who gave me no support, that Wrexham could have had something that would have entertained thousands.

They soon started their own sessions at Plas Madoc Leisure Centre shortly after. However, they experienced a lot of problems with customer control and shut down soon after.

With my family support and absolutely no knowledge about roller skating, I was forced to add other venues because of lack of government funding.

Skating equipment of Dave Sumpter.

I had a constant fight to keep customer costs down to a minimum to encourage families, the less well off and people with disabilities to be able to afford my session, this was extremely hard, but we survived.

I was soon able to purchase my own disco equipment - a T2 bull nose VW van, enlarged my stock of skates and found larger leisure centres throughout the North West, Shropshire, Liverpool and Cheshire.

At the beginning, we packed the skates in banana boxes, filled the van to the roof and made a rear staff seat sitting on skates, what a laugh.

It was evident that I needed to mobilise my heavy equipment and simplify the hired skates issues, so I manufactured skate racks from discarded supermarket trolleys, purchased a heavy-duty trailer and upgraded my VW.

Autumn and winter were extremely popular and there were many weeks when I had roller disco bookings on Sundays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturday mornings and afternoons, then followed by a wedding or general disco booking on Saturday nights.

The constant heavy lifting, skating with about a dozen children hanging on my arms every session and running a very busy business, eventually took it's toll on me and I suffered a spinal injury which required surgery in 1996 which disabled me.

However, additional staff and extreme hard work from my family, the business continued.

Roller disco, Wrexham Baths, 1982.

To think that I was a qualified engineer and had no experience about roller skating or disco entertainment, I proved to myself that anyone could achieve a dream.

In addition to general sessions, I branched out into school coaching in the quieter months and even had summer weekly sessions at the Butlins Holiday Camp in Pwllheli.

Yes there were times when individuals thought that they could disrupt the enjoyment of others, but identifying them at an early stage in the session, reading them the riot act and explaining what we were there for, I quickly gained their respect.

It may have been the family atmosphere we created and by everyone on first name terms that made it so popular. At our busiest times, we would entertain 400 in a two-hour session and my wife always amazed me by remembering so many of their names.

Party games, ramping, the popular limbo, fancy dress and Red Nose sessions were great enjoyment.

The following 18 years were an experience that I would never have dreamed of. It was very hard work but also very rewarding. The respect we had from customers of all ages and the joy they had letting off steam, together with all my family members joining me in my venture, made it all worthwhile.

Sadly, in 2000, a general operation became complicated which I then developed CFS/ME and had to retire at an early age of 53.

Anyone wanting to purchase my stock and continue with my business venture couldn’t find an insurance company willing to gamble the risk with claims. My same insurers kept me for the whole 18 years because of my reputation by having just one small claim for a cut hand after more than 100,000 customers.