When I was 18 I hated disco. I thought it had nothing to do with “proper” music involving men with electric guitars. But there was something about Tina Charles and this infectious earworm that broke through my snobbery.

Perhaps it was her equally infectious smile and the self-evident joy she displayed onstage. With her girl-next-door style, she was so obviously the antidote to glamorous disco divas like Donna Summer and Gloria Gaynor, Sister Sledge and The Three Degrees.

They brought exotic American style and fashion to the pop charts. Tina was a home-grown disco queen from the East End of London – your chubby older sister having the time of her life.

When she appeared on Top of the Pops with this catchy slice of disco, shuffling around like the self-conscious girls at my local disco, she looked the girl who had won the lottery.

And who could blame her? She’d been slogging away for years as a session singer when I Love To Love (But My Baby Loves To Dance) was a hit in 1976.

Her very first effort was recorded back in 1969 with another struggling session musician called Reg Dwight playing piano and singing backing vocals on the unremarkable pop song Good To Be Alive – and its B-side, Same Old Story.

She had appeared on The Two Ronnies, as what you might call the interval entertainment, and sang in groups that came and went (Northern Lights, Wild Honey, Airbus).

She impersonated real stars on a dozen of those cheap Top of the Pops albums with karaoke-style versions of the latest hits that came in sleeves usually featuring a girl in a crochet bikini.

She had even appeared on Top of the Pops before, singing backing vocals with her friend Linda Lewis for Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel on their 1975 chart topper Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me).

And she sang lead vocals on another hit, I’m On Fire by 5,000 Volts – but never got the credit. Recorded by Tina with her group, Airbus, the song was the B-side of a single.

When it became a radio hit the record company changed their name to 5,000 Volts and the song got to no.4. But due to a contractual clash, when they appeared on Top of the Pops they hired a stand-in to mime Tina’s vocals.

But there was a happy ending.

Tina finally found solo success with this song, produced by Biddu – the man behind Kung-Fu Fighting for Carl Douglas – and recorded with a quartet of Manchester musicians (guitarist Clive Allen, Richie Close on keyboards, bassist Des Browne and drummer Tom Daley).

Along with her next hit, Dance Little Lady Dance, Tina spent all but 10 weeks of 1976 in the singles chart. She toured with a band comprising her boyfriend Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes and Bruce Woolley.

By the time they became Buggles, and the Eighties consigned disco to the dustbin of music history, Tina was married and raising a son… with seven solo hits to her name.