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Post by althea on Nov 9, 2020 11:43:13 GMT
I can't actually remember when it was, that my mother and my aunt decided to run a dancing school. I suppose I was about eight years old. The venue was an old schoolroom, not used often for social gatherings. It was beginning to disintegrate and was surrounded by huge weeds and nettles. Surprisingly ,we had plenty of girls joining, and one boy. The boy was my age and his name was Maurice. He was a very masculine boy, who would have been better suited to boxing lessons. Poor Maurice, I think his mother thought dancing would knock some of his rough edges off. It didn't of course. I knew Maurice when he grew up and became a docker, as he married a school friend of mine. He used to go hunting with his two Labrador dogs and was a very macho man. My cousin Grace and I were forced to go every week and learn to tap dance. A friend of my mother's came along and taught ballet. He was a professional dancer between jobs. This man became the bane of my life. He decided I would make a ballerina(ME!) He even came to the house on Sunday mornings to give me private lessons then he would stay for Sunday dinner. I think the dinner was why he came. I hated learning ballet steps and suffered aches and pains as my teacher struggled to get me up on my points. I can't imagine anyone less likely to become a ballerina than I. It's true I was small, but I was a tomboy, interested in climbing trees and death defying stunts. Luckily, my teacher, went back into a company and I was free of him. I hated tap dancing too though and I still had to endure that. We used to put shows on up and down the countryside, in little village halls and the like. Sometimes we entertained old people in homes or sick people in convalescence homes. The trouble was, my mother made me the lead dancer, who is always on the end to the right as you look at the stage. The others are meant to look at the lead, if they lose timing or forget steps and it was my job to make sure we were all in step. There was one girl in particular who could never learn a routine or keep time. Often she tripped over her own feet. Poor girl, I think it was her mother who was keen, not her. The only time I enjoyed going to dance class was when Maurice and I used to hide and frighten some of the others or get up to mischief like hiding outside. Once, my cousin came out with us and fell in the nettles. She was very badly stung, so I got punished for that. In those days we had red tap shoes, but my mother asked Maurice's mother to get him some black ones. She couldn't get them, so she dyed red ones black. In those days shoe dye was horrendous and it stank to high heaven. I used to laugh when people would wrinkle their noses, wondering what that awful smell was. It took months to go completely. If there was ever a hitch backstage, and there was-often, I was pushed on to do a solo. I either did the sailor's hornpipe, which is a very strenuous dance, or a Hawaiian hula. I hated the hula because I had to wear a string of paper flowers round my neck and a grass skirt. Besides my knickers, that was all. I got very self conscious because I was starting to develop and constantly worried about where the flowers were. In later life, as adults, Maurice and I met at a function .My husband and his wife were there too. Maurice surprised me and everyone else, by grabbing me and we did a sort of Fred and Ginger routine. It was a hoot.
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Post by ARENA on Nov 9, 2020 12:12:53 GMT
I was a Maurice too!
I think , because my mother desperately wanted a daughter, I was sent to dance classes. She also tried to get me knitting and because dad was off fighting I became her constant companion. As I developed into a 6 footer by the age of 11, she kind of gave up on feminising me and accepted I was a bloke.
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Post by goodlookingone on Nov 9, 2020 15:36:53 GMT
The Mind Boggles.
I suppose all that sort of thing finished when people Bought (or rented) Televisions.. Just the same way that Television "Killed" Conversation,
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Post by themanwhoknewnothing on Nov 10, 2020 10:48:21 GMT
I grew up in the era of girlie magazines ,where nipples were air-brushed out. I honestly believed that was how boobs were for a long time.
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Post by ARENA on Nov 11, 2020 8:15:03 GMT
As a paperboy I found a bundle of magazines put out for the dustman. They were 'Blighty' , I think. As you say none of the girls had nipples.
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Post by clioseward on Nov 11, 2020 9:05:15 GMT
We were so naive then.I thought boys willies ( I had a brother) were just for doing wees
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Post by goodlookingone on Nov 11, 2020 9:57:43 GMT
Oi ... An ex schoolmate of a Lady friend of mine was in Blighty.... (and Later in The Sun, when she "retired", but published as being 15 years younger than I know her ex-schoolmates to be?)
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Post by aubrey on Nov 11, 2020 11:31:03 GMT
We were so naive then.I thought boys willies ( I had a brother) were just for doing wees
They are.
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Post by althea on Nov 11, 2020 17:08:15 GMT
Oi ... An ex schoolmate of a Lady friend of mine was in Blighty.... (and Later in The Sun, when she "retired", but published as being 15 years younger than I know her ex-schoolmates to be?) I'm always amazed ,how older actresses, that I knew were the same age as I am, now proclaim to be years younger than I am.
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Post by ARENA on Nov 13, 2020 8:10:31 GMT
You're talking about women who's sole asset is how they look.
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Post by althea on Nov 13, 2020 13:59:04 GMT
I know, Arena. I think male actors have the same problem. It's the industry they are in....... It must be worrying to see your hair turning grey, or wrinkles forming, knowing that if you don't hide them, you won't get any job offers.
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Post by ARENA on Nov 13, 2020 16:07:22 GMT
I know, Arena. I think male actors have the same problem. It's the industry they are in....... It must be worrying to see your hair turning grey, or wrinkles forming, knowing that if you don't hide them, you won't get any job offers. Indeed I knew quite a few who wore wigs and make-up to hide the fact they were ageing. Vanity is something that can exist in both sexes. One famous actor I knew wore a knit wig and hid it from his wife and children. A fitter came to the house regularly but he told them he was a financial adviser.
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Post by aubrey on Nov 13, 2020 16:25:38 GMT
I know, Arena. I think male actors have the same problem. It's the industry they are in....... It must be worrying to see your hair turning grey, or wrinkles forming, knowing that if you don't hide them, you won't get any job offers. Indeed I knew quite a few who wore wigs and make-up to hide the fact they were ageing. Vanity is something that can exist in both sexes. One famous actor I knew wore a knit wig and hid it from his wife and children. A fitter came to the house regularly but he told them he was a financial adviser.
Or Miles Malleson who used to wear a wig, but who, on playing a bald part, would wear the bald wig over the top of his regular wig and then another wig on top of that.
I really like him though; he was a radical playwright in the 1920s who used to get his plays cut, etc, for Bolshieness. I'll always watch a film with him in it.
Buying "Views" in Peeping Tom:
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