"I'M in the mood for dancing," so the song goes. And we all love the activity so much that, because of popular demand, the TV show Come Dancing - which ran for more than 45 years until it was axed in 1996 - is about to resurface on television.

Shame, then, that in the real world most people (especially those under 30) are only ever in the mood for a shimmy across the dance floor when they've had one too many.

I still feel uncomfortable when I think back two decades to my clubbing days, when I would watch my bolder friends take to the spot-lit floor just minutes after we had arrived. The rest of us didn't even attempt it until we had downed so many spritzers that we were unable to focus properly.

Of course we still knew where to put our handbags.

We were dreadful dancers and we knew it. With any form of dancing, you have either got it or you haven't. There were those who genuinely could, who effortlessly made the right moves and looked as if they belonged on a podium in an establishment owned by Peter Stringfellow.

And those - the rest of us - who really and truly couldn't, who hopped awkwardly from one foot to the other yet, under the influence of white wine and lemonade, imagined they looked like Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing.

Once you are on the dancefloor you can lose yourself in the crowd - it's the getting up and walking out there that is difficult.

But, with all forms of dancing, it appears that the older you get the fewer inhibitions you have. Across Britain, over the past decade at least, pensioners have been signing up for lessons ranging from line dancing to belly dancing. I have dropped in on a few such classes - in a professional capacity, of course - and the elderly participants don't seem at all self-conscious. They strut their stuff without a care in the world.

How I envy them. Having tried only aerobics (does that class as dancing?) as a 40-something, I should love to find a dance class (no Lycra, please) that agrees with me and allows me - stone cold sober - to get sensuously swept away in the heat of the rhythm, with no thoughts about how silly I might look.

There is no shortage of options. Salsa, tango, flamenco, Scottish, tap - and ballroom.

But still there are hurdles. The more appealing dances (Scottish is about as sensuous as a bout of Robot Wars) require partners. A friend recently invited me along to a salsa class and, though I was tempted, I declined for that reason.

I had visions of me sitting alone at the side of the room after everyone else had been picked by a dozen Patrick Swayze lookalikes.

And even if I wanted to - which I don't - I could never get my husband along. The only time I've ever seen him dance was after he sat on a upturned stiletto shoe which my youngest daughter had left on a dining room chair.

I'm resigned to the fact that, despite my red hair, I shall never be on a par with Ginger Rogers. Still, give it another 20 years or so, I may have enough confidence to shuffle along to the weekly church hall tea dance.

Updated: 10:21 Tuesday, March 30, 2004