I thought I would talk a bit more about my past life when I was young, like a hundred years ago! A photo I saw on Facebook took me right back to my teenage dance days.
I mentioned the Facebook group I belong to the other day. It’s all about my old town and the goings on there. People keep posting old photos from before even my youth. They’re fascinating as I can remember those scenes myself, I love to see them. It brings back such a lot of memories of my youth – the town is in the Doomsday Book but please don’t think I’m so old!
Teenage Dance Days
Anyway, one that was particularly interesting was a photo of the swimming baths. They were quite near to my home and I loved to go there with my friends. Every Winter, without fail, they converted the pool area into a hard floor for dancing and such like. Which of course we never got to see being done. When I saw the photo and saw what they had to do, it must have been a labour of love to re-build the floor, what a job. I had good friends from school and we loved going dancing there every Friday night.
One of my friends was into ballroom dancing so off we went on a Friday dressed in our best togs. I’d been a bridesmaid for the daughter of my mum’s friend and had worn a beautiful, shimmering brocade dress. It was a sort of oyster colour with lots of self figuring on it, along with details in a very soft green. Very avant garde for those days, might I add. My bridesmaids dress was repurposed into my outfit for those teenage dance days!
We met up outside in our best bib and tucker, along with white gloves and handbag, a must in those days if you we were going out dressed up. And off we went.
We had to pay a small entry fee of course, which I got from my mum. Being about 15, I didn’t have an income of my own! The place was full of older people who seemed very, very old to me. Probably one step away from being ready for the Great God in the Sky if you know what I mean.
Looking back, they were probably in their sixties! But when you’re 15, everybody over 20 seems to be 90. Old age is something that’s a million light years away. Put it this way, my brother was 5 years older than me and I remember telling him on his 21st birthday that he looked really really ancient. And I meant it!
Collect your Dance Cards….
The first thing we were given was a dance card, listing the dances and the order they were in. Me and my friends had been old-time dancing before so we weren’t too bad there. But some of them, oh my goodness, talk about tripping over your feet, it wasn’t in it! But we gave it our best shot and got there in the end.
The dance card of course originated from around the turn of the century when ‘ladies’ would carry a dance card and small pencil. A gentleman would approach her and ‘book’ her for any dance she had free, not already booked by other men in the room. She’d then tick the dance off when she decided if she liked the look of him I suppose. And the men would know exactly which dance they were doing with who. I suppose it was like pre-booking in today’s terms to make sure you had a ‘spin’ with the lady of your choice!
Spinning Around!
Oh I felt so good, spinning around in my brocade dress. It was like an escape from realism into a world I never knew about, and boy did I enjoy it. I felt like Cinderella going to the ball, although I would have got hung drawn and quartered if it reached midnight and after before I got home!
There was a café at the back of the building. We’d go and have a drink of orange juice, or tea and a nice bun or biscuit to get the energy to carry on.
The fun started when we were encouraged to join a group of six people making us the eighth, to learn the Lancers and Quadrille dances. These were a formation dance facing each other, four on one side, four on the other. It was very complicated as you had to weave in and out of the other couples. They were very fast dances with such a lot of different footwork. As the ‘oldies’ took it all so seriously, we had to stifle the laughter of youth as we kept getting it wrong.
Eventually we got there and realised what to do, which was a relief for them and us!
There was also a night for ‘rock and roll, and a load more attractions. So it was very popular in those days, when there wasn’t a lot else to do. We might have been bored but never ever thought of getting up to things we shouldn’t. Not like some of today’s generation.
Then off we went home, into the cold night air. It met us like a wall after getting so hot with all the dancing. I must say, we had some really happy times when we were young. It’s been lovely to see the old haunts again. I hope they keep coming. Hubby has printed some of them out for me to keep. Hopefully he’ll do some more, especially as I don’t live there anymore.
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