He is already getting bookings for the next event in October.. Hey, remember that alien autopsy footage? I think that might be fake! It's just a feeling, so don't push me, but I don't think that's a real alien! I first learnt of the footage - when was it, a year ago - in a TV documentary on a remarkable incident in 1947, when a UFO was supposed to have crashed in the desert in the United States. The programme showed a clip of film of an autopsy being performed on one of the aliens. My first reaction was to paint the windows white and hide under the table This was panic, and it passed. Specialist record stalls next to the dance floor are run by devotees like Gary Dennis, a DJ who still regularly travels to the States in search of rare grooves which can sell for several hundred pounds."What I don't want you to think is that the Soul Weekender is for flabby old blokes trying to relive their youth and get off with a bunch of younger women," says Rix finally. The original soulies' drug of choice was "poor man's coke" - speed, snorted to keep them going on the dance floor right through the night.

But anything else, acid or ecstasy, just gets in the way of the music and dancing, which is apparently the real buzz for everyone who makes their way to Caister. "Musically it was too diluted," says Perry, "they just seemed to have a little bit of everything." And while club music like House and Garage and more recently Ragga and Jungle are the natural successors to the original northern soul cult, Henry and friends don't exactly feel comfortable, being twice the age of most of the people there."We don't like the drugs either," says Henry, echoing an opinion widely held by those at the event. Caister may be windswept and tacky, but in Henry's opinion it has never been bettered.He and his friends tried Glastonbury once but thought it was "soft". Today the car park is crammed with BMWs and the odd Ferrari, and punters now book their pounds 70 Weekender tickets on Amex Gold cards.

"A mark one Cortina was definitely the car to be seen in then," he reminisces fondly. Everyone is issued with a laminated ID card, and vans full of security guards in black uniforms patrol the site, checking the perimeter fence. As usual, the event was sold out and hundreds had to be turned away.Henry, a 37-year-old businessman from southwest London, is proud to have been present at the first Weekender, at Caister in 1979. Around midday Saturday in Caister, the Soul Family are emerging, stiff-legged and hung over, from the neat, cream chalets that stretch endlessly towards the overcast horizon. Mike Flowers brought back easy listening and Oasis paid tribute to Burt Bacharach, but the current big hit single "Fast Love", by George Michael, pays tribute to a 1981 soul classic, "Forget Me Nots", by Patrice Rushen. A taste, no doubt, of more to come.The music was accessible but cultish at the same time. "In the mid-Seventies, all we had was public service broadcasting, basically Radio 1, which was run by a group of men who were older and pretty out of touch.

There was no outlet for populist black dance music," says Robbie Vincent.Vincent and club DJs like Chris Hill, now 52 and the top-billing name at Caister, travelled to the States in search of soul and rare grooves. Vincent then played his latest discoveries on his Saturday morning BBC Radio London show, which soon acquired a dedicated following. "I found out that if I played a new soul record on my show at 11.10, by 11.30 you couldn't buy it anywhere in London. The record stores only stocked 300 or so of an imported single and people listening went straight out and bought them."The original Soul Kids, underground and obscure enough to be trendy but without being threatening, passed most people by They weren't angry or rebellious All they wanted to do was dance. While punks were sticking safety pins through their cheeks and pogoing, soulies were busy applying cherry lip gloss, doing dance duels in deck shoes and grooving around white handbags to Earth Wind and Fire in places like Canvey Island in Essex, Southport near Liverpool, and Wigan Casino just outside Manchester.And they've never stopped. "This is a very exclusive event," explains Brian Rix, organiser of Caister's twice- yearly Soul Weekender. "We try to avoid publicity because we always have to turn people away as it is," says Rix a little sniffily "And we only want people who are serious about the music.