It’s not every Friday night you find yourself singing along to Viva Espana with Coronation Street’s finest.

It was about 9.30pm when Shobna Gulati, alias Corrie’s Sunita Alahan, took to the stage at Caroline Street Social Club in Saltaire. A few beers in, we were soon belting out ‘I’m taking the Costa Brava plane…’ with gusto.

Shobna was joined by a castanet-clicking Steve Huison, alias the Street’s recently-departed Eddie Windass.

Steve organised last Friday’s event to raise funds for the Soteria Network, helping people with mental illness. It was a lovely old-school club night, with a raffle, a cold buffet and a series of ‘turns’.

There was actor Dean Andrews, alias Ray in Life On Mars, revealing a fine singing voice, and his daughter Alexandra, also a singer. An illusionist calling himself The Mentalist played with our minds, and fabulous Shipley band Eddie Earthquake and the Tremors delivered a cracking set of Beatles covers which had us shaking our air moptops on the dancefloor. A great time was had by all, beneath the sparkling glitter ball.

It’s a great little venue, tucked down a Saltaire street. It reminded me of evenings I spent as a child in caravan-site social clubs, racing around a family room with a gang of rowdy under-12s while our parents sat huddled in quiz teams in the smoke-filled bar next door.

There aren’t so many of those places around anymore, and that’s a shame. Whatever you feel about the smoking ban, there’s no denying it has had a devastating effect on clubland. Rising licence fees and dwindling membership of the Club and Institute Union haven’t helped.

Last year, the T&A reported that the CIU, representing social and working men’s clubs, was in danger of folding, with establishments including the Caroline Street venue leaving because of steep fees.

There was a time when these venues thrived in this district. They were weekend havens offering bingo, comics, crooners, cheap beer and a meat raffle – and a few hours of solace from the daily grind of mills and factories. They were the lion’s den for bad comics, and a springboard to success for the good ones.

These clubs are as much a part of our heritage as the grand Victorian textile palaces that sprouted in Bradford’s industrial heyday. For long-standing club members, like the 76-year-old gent I got chatting to at the bar on Friday, you can keep your gastro-pub with its exposed brickwork and over-priced rocket and pan-fried calf’s liver.

As I rediscovered on Friday, all you really need is a pint or two, a few mates and a naff holiday song to have a top night.