I remember one day when I was in junior school, aged about nine, I jumped over the school fence and went home. When Mum saw me, she asked me what I was doing at home. I burst into tears and told her that I didn’t like school and I didn’t want to go back. She calmly gave me a lolly and listened to me, before sending me back to school: she made the situation less traumatic than it might have felt because she didn’t make a big hoo-ha about it.
Talking about sweets, our mum bought us sweets every evening, which she would then leave behind the kettle. How random is that? Each night we would come home and check behind the kettle to see what sweets we had, and she never forgot, even though, like Dad, she was holding down two jobs. As you get older you can forget how amazing your parents were. Anyway, back to me and my dancing.
Don’t get me wrong, I used to like walking to school with my friends and coming home, as well as classes in country dancing and gymnastics in between, but that was about it.
All my school reports said, ‘Louie could do better if he concentrated, if he tried harder.’
I suppose I could have tried harder, but how could I concentrate? I sat in class behind Trudie Francesconi, who had long, shiny dark brown hair which reached her waist. I used to imagine what it must be like to have hair that long. When she moved her head, her hair would follow a couple of beats later, and you could see your reflection in it when the sun shone on her hair.
During playtime while the boys were kicking balls around, you could find me brushing Trudie’s hair in the playground. When I was finished, I would crown it with a daisy chain, which I had skilfully put together. I was known for my rose petal perfume and my daisy chains at John Ray Infants School.
None of the kids thought anything of it. I was just Louie, and even at that very young age, I had a big personality that could make people laugh. I think this prevented others from categorising me as anything but Louie. I had such confidence and I was never apologetic for who I was. My behaviour did not seem wrong and none of my friends seemed to think it was.
I often crowned myself Fairy Princess and sprayed myself with my home-made rosewater perfume. And I was very content with my daisy crowns until Nadine Leicester was crowned Braintree Carnival Princess. She brought her sparkling diamante tiara to school and I was dumbstruck: I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Even Trudie’s shiny hair could not compete with the sparkle and shine of this real princess’s tiara.
I had to have it. Nadine was not someone I played with much, even though she lived around the corner from me, next to Gary Smith – who I played with more often. But Nadine was soon to become one of my best friends. I started by brushing her hair at playtime. It was not like brushing Trudie’s hair: Trudie had hair like satin and it was straight as spaghetti, but Nadine’s hair had a slight curl. Her hair was also slightly coarse, with a few split ends. I had learned what split ends were from my sisters.
Nadine was not going to give up her crown easily. It took a lot of brushing and plaiting, and giving up my lunchbox treats of Milky Ways, Curly Wurlies, Blue Riband, and I lost count of how many packets of pickled onion Monster Munch.
But it was so worth it. The day had arrived! I went around to Nadine’s house after school and there it was, in her bedroom on top of her chest of drawers. I was transfixed and before I knew it, I had it in my hands and placed it on my head. I was a princess, if only for a few seconds.
Nadine was having none of it. She snatched it from me and said she was going to tell her mum. In one sense, I was glad it was over: it meant no more giving away my lunch-box treats. If only I knew then what I know now – I did not need her tiara to be a princess! Look at me now, I’m the queen of Braintree!
I found school lessons uninspiring and boring compared to classes with Doreen Cliff, which filled me with so much joy. Where her classes seemed to finish too quickly, school seemed never-ending. I don’t know how I learned to read and write – I never paid any attention in class. It must have been a purely unconscious process. I suppose it was lucky I wasn’t conscious. Who knows, I might have studied and ended up running a corporation or country somewhere, in Lycra, no doubt. No, let’s keep it real: that would never have happened.
But I lie – I do remember learning something at school, with Mrs Pye, when I was about six. I learned how to tie my shoelaces in a double bow; we practised on a big cardboard boot.
My attitude to school did not change throughout junior school and continued into my first year of senior school, when I decided to try and get into Italia Conti in London, with the help of Doreen Cliff.
I REMEMBER the first show we ever did at Doreen Cliff’s School, on the big stage with the red curtains. I played a chicken and a hula boy, and the girls were all hula girls. We rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed – Doreen was very tough, even with five-year-olds. She made sure everything was perfect for the big night. And everything was perfect – my parents had even bought me a little gold signet ring in celebration. But could they get me on that stage? Neither for love nor a gold signet ring! My chicken was not clucking that evening.
I had a fear I had not experienced before; not even lonely nights in my MFI bed could compare to this. I couldn’t breathe, which might have been because the elastic around the chicken head was asphyxiating me. Whatever the reason, I did not want to go on stage. That was my only experience of stage fright. Lucky it happened then and not at a paying gig, but I didn’t get the gold signet ring. I suspect they had only bought it to keep me out of Mum’s jewellery box, with its beads and clip-ons.
I was worried after this no-show that Mum wouldn’t allow me to go back to dance classes at Doreen Cliff’s. I don’t know what I would have done without those classes, because I felt complete when I was dancing – a bit of ballet, tap and disco. I did love a bit of disco – all that thrusting, all that Lycra. Of course she let me go back – she wanted to keep her Saturday mornings free.
I started to take my exams at Doreen Cliff’s in acro, disco, tap and modern. I always received Honours for acro and disco, and I loved the exams because it meant I would have to get new costumes. One of my favourite costumes was an electric blue all-in-one Lycra catsuit with stirrups. Now, you could dress this up or down, depending on how you wanted it. Back in the disco days, elasticated sequins were all the rage, especially on armbands, anklebands, belts and head-bands. You could also have tinsel tassels, which is a mouthful for me, but it looked amazing when doing a disco spin. I loved sewing the tassels – give me a needle, thread and sequins and I’m in my element.
I remember coming home once to find Dad in my Lycra all-in-one, prancing around in front of the family, which they thought was very funny, but I was pissed off. I did not find it funny, at the age of seven, having spent ages sewing on my tinsel tassels, that he might stretch my all-in-one and ruin it. It was for seven-to nine-year-olds, not for 30! It was my life!
Dancing had been my life since the age of five and I lived for Saturday mornings, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays after school, when I would go to dance classes. My parents never had to wake me up or push me to attend dance classes – it was always my choice. I was never late for class and they never interfered or prevented me from attending.
EVEN THOUGH I loved going to Doreen Cliff School of Dance at the Braintree Institute, I knew that there wasn’t enough for me to learn – I seemed to master whatever I was taught very quickly and if I didn’t, I would work on it night and day until the next lesson. That was when my friend Yvonne O’Grady who lived at number five, by the park with the swings and roundabouts, told me about a new dance school that she was attending in a nearby village.
Yvonne and I use to attend trampolining classes after school when I wasn’t dancing and I became North Essex champion. Sometimes we used to practise trampoline moves from a trampette on to crash mats and move on to the trampoline when we had perfected the move. Well, I thought I had perfected it, until I did the double-front summersault into a front drop and I didn’t open up, but over-rotated, staying in a nice tight tuck.
Whenever I concentrated, I always had my tongue hanging out. Not really a good thing to do when you’re