Save the last dance for me: Couple take to ballroom floor for the final time

Ron Hill and wife Marilyn rolled back the years yesterday when they returned to the town's famous Tower Ballroom for one last time.

- by Richard Hunt

The world-famous venue was where the couple would dance the nights away for 20 years from the mid-1960s to the 1980s, when multi-instrumentalist Ron worked as a musician at the Empire Hotel, in Blackpool.

But sadly Blackpool-born Ron, who now lives in Oxfordshire, has Alzheimer's disease and other health problems and will soon need to go into a care home.

As a poignant treat, granddaughter Olivia Watts managed to bring the magic back when she arranged for the couple to return to the ballroom.

She decided to approach Blackpool Tourism Ltd, which owns the Tower Ballroom, to see if the couple, who are in their eighties, could dance there one final time.

But the venue was booked up and it looked like she had hit a brick wall - and then Olivia posted her plea on social media platform TikTok.