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Elizabeth Henderson's Blog - Memories of an Unremarkable Woman

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« Early Days Start All Change »
Early Days continued
Looking back from what I have previously written, I realise now something which had never occurred to me before. I must have been a great joy to my parents, especially Mother. They had brought up six children without very much money when there was no opportunity to develop individual talent and there were no clothes except school uniform and sometimes we were not able to go to school because we had no shoes. I am told that the five girls were often difficult, sometimes one or two ganging up on the rest and there was a lot of jealousy. In contrast I was born at a time when they were more affluent.

I must have been a joy to bring up never having any tantrums and taking all the teasing from my sisters in good part. I was a happy child, blonde hair blue eyes, whereas my sisters were, for the most part, rather unprepossessing as far as looks were concerned. My mother enjoyed dressing me in the way she could never have afforded with the others and I was sent to private schools where my individual talents were recognized. I went next to a little school called Malvern House where I was happy and popular. I have a photograph of me conducting a little orchestra there by popular consent.

When I was small my sister Margaret made a lot of the furniture for my big dolls house (the staircase was big enough for my kitten to climb up) and also made me a dolls pram out of a wooden crate. I loved pushing the pram round and round the garden but next door lived a rather grand old lady who took pity on me and sent me a beautiful real pram. Unfortunately I preferred the old one! It was this lady whose daughter was the tutor at the Royal Ballet and got tickets for my mother and me to see the Nutcracker Ballet. I don't remember but I was told that when I got home, in thanking Mrs McCarthy, I danced the whole ballet for her. She said "This child must have lessons in ballet". My parents were not keen but, because of a history of bad backs in the family, I was allowed to start lessons to improve my posture.

Miss Oakeshott taught in a local village hall and also in my new school and from now on dancing was the only interest in my life apart from books. To get to my school I had a long walk down Wickham road and a bus. It wasn't a difficult journey as I often had someone to take me but coming back there seemed to be dogs on every corner which scared me. I used to pray every day "Please God don't let me meet any dogs". Sometimes it worked! It was a very large hall in Catford where I had been asked to dance a Pavane in Elizabethan dress at a pageant of the town through the ages.

My dancing teacher decided at the last moment to alter the dance and was giving me instructions from the wings! This went well until after I had finished and gone back to my dressing room. I must have looked very attractive all on my own in my beautiful red dress, a tiny figure on the large stage dancing very gravely. The Mayor was so impressed that he asked for a repeat performance. By this time my teacher had gone home so I had to remember all the new steps. I had a similar experience when the school put on a little play were I was asked to dance as a fairy. All went well as I had a dance prepared but nobody had told me that the centre of the stage had a grotto in the middle so I had to dance around and over it. Not one of my best efforts.

All my spare time was taken up with dancing lessons and competitions and appearing at little local garden parties etc. Mother enjoyed taking me to all the different venues. Examinations were very intimidating. We had to attend with all the other candidates is a large hall somewhere in London will allowed to take our own accompanist with us and will wearing our small tutus and our hair drawn back from our faces. As I names were called we walked down a vast floor to the table where the invigilator sat. She took no notice of your entry and only lifted her head up when you gave your best courtesy. She then told you to step into the chalk container to stop your shoes slipping on the shining floor. After going three through the correct arm and foot postures we were given a short combination of movements to carry out. A knowledge of all the French terms is required and a set mime followed. In my case this caused quite a problem, when I was told to mime washing day all went well for the first few minutes until she stopped to ask me what I was doing. Father was always first get the latest gadget and had bought mother a brand new washing machine so that all I knew of washing day was putting in plugs turning on taps and put in the washing through an automatic ringer. Problem was solved! We then had to perform a regional dance of our own choosing then were allowed to leave after a final that deep curtsey.
This entry was posted on September 30, 2009 at 2:15 pm.
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Introduction Explore the Family Tree Return to Library Index View the Resources Used