BALLROOM dancing returned with a swing to Bournemouth’s Pavilion Ballroom.

Mel Douglas, the dance’s organiser, led the music, which saw around 100 couples take to the floor for Valentine’s Day, for a tea dance and later the main event, the Valentine’s Ball.

It is the first time that ballroom dancing could be seen in the Pavilion Ballroom in 18-months and people at the dance were pleased to see it back.

Mel said: “I do tea dances around Bournemouth, and depending on how this goes, we are potentially going to do Tuesday evenings here at the Pavilion once a month.

“We’re hoping to build it back up again, because I’ve been here 18 years and the thing is, because they had a refurbishment, it was closed for a while and now hopefully we can keep it going for another 18 years.

“It’s been here a long time, since 1929, but they have various events here and we want to get this back on the map for ballroom dancing.

“Before the Imax was built, you had a beautiful view of the channel, but obviously now, you can’t see that and so I’ve seen the landscape change out of this window.

“I do events all over Bournemouth, but it’s getting people to come along and these events are dependent on people being here.

“It’s lovely. I’ve done the odd thing in here, but you want to see the venue being used for the purpose it was built for.”