Ballroom dancing has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, but I didn’t realise just how important it would become in shaping my future, until I had to take the place of one of my bosses following an accident. Dancing Queen A novel by Louise Anne Smithson Copyright © 2013 Louise Anne Smithson All Rights Reserved.

Ballroom dancing has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My parents were keen amateur competitive dancers before I was born and some of my earliest memories are of seeing them dancing together in competitions, or else admiring the cups and medals that they had won over the years. There have always been a number of framed photographs around the house of them dancing together. My father looked most elegant in a dark evening suit and my mother dressed in one of her beautiful ball gowns. I was their only child and a relatively late addition to their lives, and so, inevitably, I spent quite a lot of time in the company of my parents or other adults. In most respects I had a secure and happy early childhood growing up in the town of Luton, which is about thirty miles to the north of London.

However, things changed when I was only six years old. My dad died suddenly in 1996 when he was only fifty-one, which came as a great shock to both my mother and to myself. The unexpectedness of his death had consequences for us both. I developed a slight stammer which further impaired my ability to communicate and make friends with other children. My mother, who found herself a widow in her late forties, embarked on a period of profound sadness, bordering on depression. She continued to go to work and looked after me properly but could never face the idea of finding a new partner and so gave up competitive dancing altogether. Our house with all its memorabilia of her happier past now became a far sadder place.

Although she had retired from competitive dancing, Mum never lost her love of the pastime, and in later years, encouraged me to take it up myself and taught me the basic steps at home. She also used to let me stay up with her to watch a television programme called Come Dancing. I remember that this was the one time in the week that she seemed to be truly happy once again, reliving her past and telling me stories about the competitions that she and my father had entered and frequently won. When that programme was dropped from the television schedules at the end of 1998, she felt particularly bereft as it had been broadcast for as long as she could remember. She felt as if an important part of her past life was no more. Her dance costumes were consigned to a trunk in the attic, and thereafter the only dancer in our household was me.

I persevered with my dance classes as it was my one opportunity to meet members of the opposite sex and I found my stammer would disappear whilst I was concentrating on the dance steps. There were always far more girls than boys at the classes I attended, and so I was in constant demand as a dance partner, which I didn’t mind. I never said too much about my hobby at school, though, in case I was accused of being a ‘sissy’ by my classmates. When someone did discover about my dancing I would tell them about my Dad, and the fact that no-one ever called him a sissy: that usually did the trick. As a result of my stammer and my interest in ballroom dancing I was accepted by most of my contemporaries as being mildly, but harmlessly, eccentric.

I progressed well as a junior dancer and even entered a few junior competitions in my early teens. At one point I even had thoughts of becoming a professional. However, although my interest never flagged, my progress did. I never developed the physique necessary to be a top-flight dancer. Although I possessed several of the required attributes, such as poise, good posture, musicality and good foot and leg action, male dancers also need good upper body strength to be able to perform lifts and had to be of at least average height so as not to be dwarfed by their partners dancing in their high heels. Neither of these traits was forthcoming to me after puberty. I settled at five foot five, with a fairly slim build, and small hands and feet. Thus I found myself less and less able to compete at the higher levels and all thoughts of a professional career were gradually dropped.

All the same, I continued to enjoy myself and my interest in dance and willingness to help ‘behind-the scenes’ did at least help me to find a reasonable job, which I am sure would not have been forthcoming if I’d merely attended for an interview. A married couple who were two of the keenest members of our local ballroom dancing group jointly owned a small independent estate agency in Dunstable, about five miles from where I lived. Rob was also the chairman of the Luton and District Ballroom Dance Society and a competent dancer in his own right; his wife Sarah was acknowledged to be the best female dancer we had. As nobody else seemed willing to do so, I volunteered to act as the secretary of the group. Apparently Rob and Sarah were so impressed with the way in which I performed this clerical role, whilst I was still only eighteen, that they offered me a trial as their office junior in August 2008 when my story begins. I was then living at home with my mother who had recently retired from work, now aged sixty.

Rob and Sarah’s business was located in Dunstable High Street. It had only three full-time staff in addition to themselves and also a couple of part-timers who helped look after the shop at weekends. Rob and Sarah were both in their early thirties; Helen, who was twenty two, was training to be a negotiator, Richard, our surveyor was aged twenty-six, and then me. Jenny and Sue were both married with teenaged children and so were happy to cover the shop at weekends. I suspect that the other staff may have considered me to be an odd appointment, because having a slight speech impediment did not exactly help when I was trying to communicate with clients in person or over the phone, but there was always plenty of paper work for me to do behind the scenes and I was soon able to demonstrate my usefulness to the business. It was understood, however, that before I would be able to progress to more responsible duties I would need to show that my stammer did not get in the way of me dealing with the clients.

After nearly a decade in the doldrums, Ballroom dancing and its competitive version Dancesport began to grow in popularity in the UK once again during the latter part of the first decade of the new century. This was largely due to the growing success of a new format celebrity version of the Come Dancing, TV show called Strictly Come Dancing which was introduced in 2005. (The title was in partial reference to the dance-based comedy film Strictly Ballroom, which both of my parents had loved, and which my mother often watched on DVD.) As a result of the success of Strictly Come Dancing, which went out at a prime time, many couples who had never thought about dancing before began to take up the hobby and join local clubs. Thus my skills as an organiser, amateur choreographer and dance coach began to be in great demand,

Towards the end of September 2008 our society was busy organising a series of six fortnightly exhibition/demonstration and training sessions scheduled to begin on 25th September and continue until 5th December where some of our best dancers would show off the most common traditional ballroom and Latin American dances to our new members and also those from neighbouring clubs in the region who wished to attend. Much of the Society’s income for the year came from the profits made from these demonstration sessions, which were usually well-attended. We would begin with the Waltz, and Foxtrot, and then move on to faster, showier dances such as the Quickstep and the Jive or else the Latin American styles such as the Samba and the Tango. On the night in question I was going through an ambitious Salsa routine that I’d recently designed for my two bosses, Rob and Sarah.

‘Now get ready Rob; and one and two and three,’ I said, keeping in time with the music, with the couple following me.

‘Now l-l-lift.’

The sudden re-appearance of my stammer, threw us all and Rob hesitated for a split second before executing the lift.

‘Be careful Rob,’ Sarah said in an alarmed voice as he lost his footing and began to stagger backwards.

Her warning came too late and he fell over backwards with his wife landing on top of him.

‘Are you alright Rob?’ I asked as he lay on the floor, winded.

‘Don’t worry about me!’ said Sarah in an aggrieved voice, trying to pick herself up.

‘I’m s-s-s-sorry, Sarah, it was my fault. Are you ok?’ I said giving her a hand to get up.

‘No! I think I’ve twisted my ankle.’

I helped them both off the floor and then to sit down for a minute to recover. I also took off Sarah’s right shoe for her, at her request. Five minutes later Rob had recovered his wind.

‘Oh my God, just look at my ankle! It’s beginning to swell up like a balloon,’ said Sarah.

‘I think we’d better get you to the hospital to have that checked out,’ said Rob.

Two hours later I was sitting in the waiting room at the of the Accident and Emergency Unit of the Luton and Dunstable Hospital getting bored with reading mindless articles in out of date copies of 'Homes and Gardens' and 'Country Life', or else listening to the local drunks bemoaning the fact that they were being kept waiting for treatment for problems that they’d brought upon themselves. Eventually Rob re-appeared from the treatment area.

‘H-h-how is she?’ I asked.

‘Not so good, I’m afraid. She must have landed badly. She has ruptured her Achilles tendon.’

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘It attaches the calf muscles to the heel bone.’

‘Is that s-s-serious?’ I asked.

‘It can be for a dancer. Her leg will have to be in a plaster cast for eight to ten weeks and it will be three months before she’s allowed to dance again.’

‘But … wha-what about next Saturday afternoon?’ I asked.

‘I’ll just have to find myself another partner.’

There was nothing more I could do, so I passed on my good wishes to the patient and made my way home whilst there were still some buses running. Fortunately Mum was away for a few days, visiting her sister in London and so she had no need to worry about my late arrival. On the way home I began to think about what we were going to do without Sarah over the next few weeks. She was scheduled to take a leading role in virtually all of our forthcoming demonstrations, yet now she was going to be out of action. It was going to be no easy task to find suitable replacements from among our members, and would certainly involve the redesign and simplification of a number of the dance routines that I’d prepared as we would no longer have four couples available. I decided to suggest to Rob that we should organise an emergency committee meeting after the first demonstration on Saturday, in order to discuss the problem. There would be time to arrange this as all the members of our Committee were likely to be present. At the same time we were also going to need a lady to step in and dance the Waltz and the Foxtrot in Sarah’s place in less than four days’ time, but that shouldn’t be too much of a problem to arrange since most competent ballroom dancers can perform them in their sleep.

Next time I am asked to help solve a problem.

My apologies that this has been some time in coming. I hope to post Chapter 2 tomorrow and then new chapters weekly thereafter. Thanks to Bronwen for editing. Louise