CARFAX Assembly Rooms was not the only Oxford dance venue to struggle with the advent of rock music.

Ballroom dancers were also squeezed out at the Forum in High Street and the Holyoake at Headington.

All three were popular places for ‘proper’ dancing in the post-war years – many romances flourished or foundered there.

But by the mid-1950s, all that teenagers wanted to do was jive, leaving little room for the ballroom specialists.

At the Forum, the clash of routines became so great that organisers put up two large notices above the bandstand – ‘Jiving only when announced’.

The notices were necessary in a small dance hall – the Forum held just 300 – if ballroom dancers, whose dancing styles consumed floor space, were to have a chance.

Band leader Stan Rogers, who ran the Saturday night dances at the Forum, restricted jiving to the back of the hall.

He said in 1963: “I am trying to keep ballroom dancing alive in Oxford. That is why it is only six shillings for men and five shillings for women to come in.”

By that time, most of his fellow bandsmen had given up.

As one promoter put it: “Rock is the only kind of dancing that pays.”

The last waltz, quickstep and foxtrot were danced at the Forum on June 19, 1965.

The ballroom was demolished to make way for extensions and a new quadrangle for the owners, St Edmund Hall.

Carfax Assembly Rooms and the Holyoake battled on for two more years before they both went the same way.

After that, any Oxford ballroom dancers wishing to display their skills had to go to Reading.