Picked Last at Primary, Calling the Ceilidh in His Forties

The second account comes from an old boy of Huyton Hill, a boys’ prep school in the Lake District that closed in 1969, where the dancing lessons happened in the Crossley Room and under floodlights at the summer revue. He still has his reports. They say he should loosen up when dancing. The problem, he adds, found a natural resolution at university.

I have been told to loosen up by a Zumba instructor, a driving examiner and, once, a midwife.

Bambery’s story has the better twist. In his forties he trained as a Sacred Dance teacher, and the first dance he was given to teach was The Angus Reel. “I could not believe that I was given a Scottish dance!” The boy picked last for Scottish dancing was handed, as his first assignment, Scottish dancing. He saw it through, enjoyed teaching it, and is now going back to basics to learn the names of holds he had used for years without knowing they had names.

Holds have names. Nobody told me either. I have spent this week finding them out from YouTube in the kitchen, with the broom as my partner, because my husband said he would rather do the bins.

By Wednesday I had the Gay Gordons, the Dashing White Sergeant and the Strip the Willow, and I was saying the holds out loud as I did them, like a pilot doing pre-flight checks. By Thursday I was drilling the children after tea. The youngest hid in the downstairs loo and could be heard, through the door, counting.

On Friday the caller walked the first dance through twice, slowly, for the beginners. Everybody else laughed when the set fell apart on the second turn. I did not laugh. I said the name of the hold.

Our daughter, who was my partner for the Gay Gordons, has since written me a school report. It says I should loosen up when dancing. She has laminated it.