TWO elderly ladies sat opposite me in the Swan bar. Age had undoubtedly wearied them but I’d put money on the hairstyles not having changed at all since 1944.

And quite suddenly, in my mind’s eye, I could imagine these two at the Saturday hop, with all the British blokes competing with the Yanks for a dance.

And here they were again, these two likely lasses yearning to hear the music of their youth before it was too late.

I’ll tell you something else as well. Back then, I can’t ever imagine them ever having been wallflowers.

Anyway, my daydream was complete the moment Ray McVay’s immaculate band struck up. Sporting the classic Miller personnel line-up of five saxes, four trombones and four trumpets, this music was just as silkily slick as when the Americans invaded our shores all those years ago.

Over here, overpaid and over-sexed. That’s what they said - and no wonder, for this was indeed the soundtrack for seduction, 1940s-style.

The great numbers tumbled over each other. Pennsylvania 65000, Chattanooga Choo-Choo, When Johnny Comes Marching Home, Tuxedo Junction… a sea of grey heads swayed and nodded to the music that had provided the accompaniment to a wartime stolen youth.

The Moonlight Serenaders, led by vocalists Colin Anthony and Jan Messeder effortless evoked the period, at times taking us into the 1950s with generous doses of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin.

But it was only towards the end when Ms Messeder’s generous medley of Vera Lynn tunes brought the capacity crowd to its feet that the real feeling of a great nation on its backfoot almost became reality once more.

And I’d like to think that those two old ladies would raise their sweet sherry glasses to that…