Dancing

Reading Jinksy's etheree and watching her wonderful video clip of a tango reminded me of dancing classes at school. It was an all-girls' school. I was educated solely with girls from the age of six to eighteen, sadly. L
Anyway, at the age of eleven we duly went off to the next stage of our state education and at the school I attended dancing was part of the process. We learnt country dancing (Strip the Willow and Sir Roger de Coverley), Old-Tyme dancing (the Veleta and the Military Two-Step), and ballroom dancing (the Cha Cha Cha and the Foxtrot). We galloped sweatily round the gymnasium, enjoying the exercise but not completely enamoured of the particular form of exercise and the brain power required to remember the moves. I would rather have been climbing ropes or vaulting.
One of our PE teachers was a very good ballroom dancer but I'm afraid we callow lasses didn't appreciate that as we watched her spinning skilfully round the hall with her female partner. All the staff members were women - the advent of two male teachers a few years later caused a great buzz of unnecessary enthusiasm. Wet lunchtimes meant we could not go outside and so dancing was arranged in the assembly hall and we always wanted the polka – that was fun!
When I was eleven I was one of the smallest girls in the school. By the time I left I was among the tallest. This meant that in ballroom dancing I had to take the man's part. This played havoc when I actually had to take the woman's part but by the time I started going to village hops and town dances most of the dancing was solo. This was just as well because I was always among the wallflowers until the final, desperate, traditional 'Last Waltz' began when every lout youth in the room homed in on the unloved to claim a dance. Being clammily clasped by an inebriated boy who was keen to boast that he had a girl-friend, however tenuous the relationship might be, was not a dream ending to a night out. I liked dancing, though, particularly on my own! I loved the Charleston but there wasn't much opportunity to dance that. I really enjoyed the Twist.
When we were about fourteen or fifteen the school organised a 'formal' dance and we all dressed up in our finest. My mother made me a very pretty dress and the highlight of the evening was noticing what everyone else was wearing. We were used to seeing each other only in hideous green uniform in the school buildings. We danced together decorously, the bolder girls inviting teachers to partner them. I wonder what those women made of the event? Many of them, though they seemed ancient to us, were probably in their late thirties or early forties and had probably lost fiancés in the war. It must have been bittersweet for them as they twirled around the parquet flooring in the embrace of adolescents, some of whom, in time-honoured manner, had crushes on them.

Joyce Grenfell brilliantly demonstrated the experience of dancing with another woman
When we reached the dizzy heights of the fifth form and were almost adult sixteen-year-olds – or so we thought of ourselves! – our school arranged a joint dance with the boys' grammar school. Oh, the delirious excitement of it all! Some of my contemporaries already had boyfriends at the school so they were paired with them. The rest of us losers were allocated partners, sight unseen. It was nerve-wracking waiting to discover one's escort for the evening and, in the event, mutually disappointing, I'm sure. We gazed enviously at our superior and rather smug sisters who had come with partners they'd chosen for themselves, tried to be polite and longed for the evening to end. I was relieved that my escort was taller than me for I was quite tall (did the teachers take height into account or were we put together alphabetically?) but the dancing was deplorable, on both our parts. He managed to keep his feet off mine, for which I was thankful, and while he wasn't actually counting the beats out loud his movements were somewhat staccato. I don't think the boys had received much dancing instruction but at least they knew they were supposed to be 'leading'. I knew I was supposed to be following but I was so accustomed to taking the lead that I was fighting him for the privilege. At some point there were refreshments but time has mercifully over-ridden all other memories of that evening. Certainly, it was not the stepping-off point to a beautiful friendship.
When the mood takes me these days I dance in the kitchen, on my own, or with a dog or rather surprised cat. Barry doesn't dance if he can avoid it, making an exception only for jiving, which he really enjoys. One of these days he will spin me out and fail to catch me as I return and I'll crash unceremoniously into the wall. No doubt he'll have a camera automatically recording  film the incident!

Unfortunately, we don't dance with anything like the flair of these two.