Sunday, 6 July 2025

Waltzing wallflowers

 

Waltzing wallflowers



When I was eleven years old, I was one of the shortest, smallest girls at my grammar school.

                Eleven years old, hair as straight as a yard of pump water.

Eighteen years old

 By the time I left, I was among the tallest.

My height meant that I had to learn the male part in ballroom dancing, which played havoc when I actually had to dance the female part. Luckily, by the time I started going to village hops and town dances most of the dancing was solo. If a boy plucked up the courage to ask a girl to dance, there was little physical contact – that is to say, physical contact was not compulsory as it would have been in more formal dancing.

When we reached the dizzy heights of the fifth form, at the age of sixteen, and considered ourselves mature and adult, 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 girls gazed enviously at our superior and rather smug sisters who had come with partners of their own choosing, tried to be polite, and longed for the evening to end.

I was relieved that my partner was taller than me. Did the teachers take height into account when allocating partners or were we put together alphabetically or just randomly? I can’t imagine they had time or inclination to find pair like-minded companions. Whatever the case, 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 robotic. Poor boy!

I don’t think the boys had received much dancing instruction. Most of the masters had returned from the war a decade or two earlier with a multitude of experiences, and teaching spotty adolescents to dance may not have been a task they desperately desired. At least the boys knew they were meant to be ‘leading.’ I knew I was supposed to be ‘following’ but I was so accustomed to taking the lead that I was fighting my partner for the privilege.

At some point there were refreshments, but time has mercifully overridden all other memories of the evening. Certainly, it was not the stepping-off point to a beautiful friendship. Later, I came to know many of the boys from the boys' grammar school, but so far as I know, they did not attend that dance. They were more interested in playing rugby or riding racing bicycles or motorbikes.

When, eventually, my friends and I started going to dances at the local Palais, the anticipation was always far better than the reality. For some, it may have been the route to meeting their life-long partner, but it was not to be so for me, or any of my close contemporaries.

I was always among the anxious wallflowers lining the walls 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. Nevertheless, it was better to dance the Last Waltz with anyone at all rather than remain on the touch line like an abandoned shipwreck. In any case, it would have been rude to refuse the offer of a dance – we were all very polite in our awkward teenage ways.

I’ve always enjoyed dancing. When the mood takes me, I dance in the kitchen on my own, or with a dog or rather surprised cat, or occasionally a small child. 

8 comments:

  1. What a charming and nostalgic reflection on the awkwardness and innocence of youth. Your memories capture the timeless experience of growing up and learning to navigate social rituals like dancing, with all their quirks and uncertainties. It’s a reminder of how those moments, though uncomfortable then, shape our stories and character.

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  2. I didn't mind being a wallflower at the one school dance I attended. It was 1966 and most of the kids had learned all of the latest dances from TV shows like Commotion and other similar ones that had the "heartthrob" bands and crowds of kids doing those dances. My schoolmates had practised these in their living rooms for months while I didn't have a clue. I was still spending more time running around on the beach and climbing trees when I wasn't reading, not at all a social butterfly.

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  3. I think we have all felt the smallest and the tallest and the fattest and the thinnest.
    But we were all actually just fine.

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  4. You give a very accurate description of teen age feelings. It was stressful even for those who were in a relationship.

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  5. You looked so pretty in the younger days! Dancing through discomfort, duty, and delight, still finding joy in the kitchen with a dog or startled cat says everything about your enduring spirit.

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  6. Scottish dancing when it was too wet for lacrosse was my limit. Then, as a student , I discovered the delights of barn dances - increasingly wild as the evening wore on. Ballroom completely passed me by. As for discos, - well, once and never again!! Ugh!

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  7. that is a remarkable baring of the soul. You were an elegant 18 year old so any awkwardness must have been internal rather than apparent.

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  8. You were indeed a very pretty girl. Not the typical wallflower!

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