On Reflection

We all say that now and again I know, but today truly has been, a very funny old day, when some of it was actually laugh out loud funny and some not at all funny. It was a day spent not in quiet reflection but instead in almost bustling, drag it all out from the dark corners, type of reflection.  

Harking back to my childhood spent almost entirely in activity, I was asked what sort of dancing I did as a child and there for a start is a full spectrum of movement flashing through my head. My mother only went out to work to pay for my dancing classes and the dancing classes were not so that I would one day be the leading light of the Royal Ballet like Billy Elliot. I was just the opposite to Billy, who had a fight on his hands just because he wanted to dance in a working class area. 

I was sent to Glendale School of Dancing at the age of about five purely to keep me off the streets. My mum had ideas waaaaay above her station and she did not want me to go out in the middle of Cranworth Road in Worthing playing Queenie, Queenie Who’s got the ball? Or running around like a little hooligan playing Tag. Not even Hopscotch or skipping with the other kids in the street or as my mum called them ‘the common children’ even though as far as class was concerned I was as ‘Common’ as any of them, in fact we as a family were certainly common and as poor as any of them.

So dancing lessons it was, no matter what the cost and my mum and dad had many words about that. My mother was not being moved on that issue. So it started with a tap class at Glendale with Miss Wendy as the Principle teacher. A little while later Miss Wendy told my mother that I had promise but needed a little refinement and that I should also take Ballet to improve my poise, arms, head etc. So I was taken on the bus to Ferring to Eileen Spahn class in the village hall on Wednesday. That proved to be a bit of a trek for mum and she made me pay attention on the second bus trip there and back and after that I went to both classes of the bus on my own. To save a bit on bus fare my big brother got lumbered with taking me to Glendale that was close to the Central station, sitting on the cross bar of his bike. He was not happy with that new duty a let me know that loud and clear.

There were more and more classes until every evening and all of Saturday morning until gone 1pm was solid dancing. Eventually after Miss Eileen got married and had a baby, my ballet classes moved to The Joan Howe School of Dancing in the centre of town just off Montague Street and lessons included Greek Dancing, Character, as well as Classical Ballet and Imperial Tap classes under Miss Howe’s tutorage whilst at Glendale it was all more Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly as Acrobatics got included. The Little Theatre with Miss Wiggins was also added.

This was all in no way under sufferance; I loved every moment, it was all I cared about and it filled my dreams every night. I practiced when ever I was alone, which was enough time, since both my parents were out to work until tea time; Dinner time these days.

 That made me unpopular with the neighbours children, who told me I was stuck up; I wasn’t…. In a dream world maybe, but not stuck up. Of course I was rubbish at school because I was tired and that got me into trouble with the teachers, who all thought my elder brother was a lovely boy and indeed he did win a scholarship to High School. I was told that my brains were in my feet.

I danced all through my childhood and all through my teenage years, and there is the answer to the question about where my fitness level comes from. It surely comes from the fact that all the time my bones were growing and my muscles were developing, I was dancing. At this point I don’t feel that I am being really horrible, when I say that the children these days, spending hours with their iphone, tablet, computer and Xboxes or what ever the modern version of Game Boy etc are; they will have to have a lot of back from their parents to get them off the settee and out playing football or sent to swimming club or whatever sport they or their parents once did or one they fancy themselves, if they even do any sport at all. 

I have two great nieces who are both red hot keen on volleyball and are already doing really well. We have a small cousin newly at school, who has already passed his first Judo exam so I see hope in my own extended family group. However on the other hand, when Steve and I went away for a few days in Switzerland recently there were two totally opposite families sitting on the same table for eight in a restaurant. One family chattered all through their meal whilst the other group did not speak to each other at all, apart from ordering their food and drinks. The father had two phones that he spoke on the whole time, even after his food arrived. The mother had a phone that she used to send and read umpteen texts and the child was not spoken to by either parent and played games on her own the whole time.

It seems to me that not only will many of our children be very unfit but they will also be incapable of holding a conversation.