The Arts In Berwick -- Music
Teenage Culture

The great cultural innovation of the 1950s was the invention of the teenager. Never before had young people had so much money to spend and leisure time in which to enjoy themselves. New fashions, new music and new attitudes swept the land, and Berwick was not immune from this influence.

The centre of disco culture was at Haggerston Castle from about 1961, with the first disco in Berwick itself, complete with starry ceiling and luminous wall decorations, opening at the Red Lion in Spittal in 1966. There was a genuine air of increasing modernity when such icons of progress as the first coin operated laundrette, first bank cash machine and a public trampoline park were all established in May 1969.

The highpoint of sophistication though, came in July of that year with the opening of a casino and cabaret nightclub at Caesar's Palace, a revamped Theatre now posing as Las Vegas-on-Tweed.

Click here to return to the Music page