The first dance

They used to have an annual dance in the Assembly Rooms. I tried my hand at dancing there. Not very successfully. It was only a one off. I went to the dance to make up a foursome but that didn’t materialise into anything. I spent most of my time on the sidelines before making the occasional foray onto the dance floor. But I think whatever music was being played at the dinner dance after the meal. It must have enabled people to do waltz or quickstep or slow quickstep to it. I don’t think it was the solo style dancing which has been the style now for the last generation or two where you’re standing out of hold. I did make a comment. “It’s always hard for a lady to dance with a chap who doesn’t know how to lead.” Which is a precursor of Strictly Come Dancing fever we have now. In that first dance. In that talk we established what we each did. I was in the legal profession and Mum was a teacher. So we got onto nodding terms before the cabaret and then we sort of gravitated to each other in the aftermath of the aborted cabaret. Do you remember what that first dance you would have had? It would have been a Waltz, One, two, Three or Quickstep, Slow. Slow. Quick. Quick. Slow. I don’t know if I can simulate it with a chair. We’ve since gone on to more ambitious things. We still haven’t acquired the glitz and the glamour that the professionals have and we don’t aspire to their wardrobe either.