There was only one problem: apparently there was an age requirement for Dadina’s school. It was 13, unlucky for some and very unlucky for me, considering I was only 11 going on 12. But by hook and by crook, by high kick and splits, I was determined to attend Dadina’s School of Dance.
Yvonne had already been attending classes for about five weeks and she used to show me some of the dance moves that Dadina had taught her. Well, you could have blown me down with a feather when she showed me what she had been learning at Dadina’s school! It was like what they did in Fame. How was I going to get there? How was I going to convince Dadina that even though I wasn’t old enough, I should attend her school?
Dadina had started a dancing school in Little Bardfield, which was a village about six miles from Braintree, and I knew that I had to go. I didn’t know Dadina, but I had seen her at school; she hadn’t been there long but you really couldn’t miss her. She was unlike all the other girls at school – she had an aura about her. Whenever I saw her leaving school to get into her mum’s Rolls-Royce, it was like time slowed down. She was tall, Anglo-Asian, around 15/16 with thick, jet-black hair that bounced in rhythm when she walked. And what a walk she had – straight back, head held high, working Notley High School’s drive like a Paris catwalk.
I asked Yvonne to put in a good word for me, which, being the lovely person she was, she did. I say lovely person, I told her otherwise I would tell all the boys in school that she wore brown towelling knickers with yellow piping, which came away from the seams. (One thing girls had worked out at an early age was when a boy was gay and they could take their leotards off without them trying to look at their budding boobs. You know the stage I mean, girls, when your tits look like a little witch’s hat.) Yvonne, not wanting her towelling knickers exposed to the whole of Notley High School, agreed that she would have a word with Dadina.
I felt like I was being summoned! Dadina had agreed to meet me – the beautiful, goddess-like figure that I looked at in awe – obviously not a sexual awe but I can’t help but love a beautiful woman, and Dadina certainly was this.
So, Yvonne told me during a lunch break to meet her and Dadina on the wall outside the Rose & Crown at 12.30, next door to the Londis where I used to nick Special Brew for Nanny Downer. Of course I said yes, even though there was a dilemma as I wasn’t on the going-home-for-lunch list. I couldn’t work out how I was going to get out of the school gates, past the dinner ladies. Believe me, they could be like the bleeding Gestapo.
Well, there was a God, because lucky for me on that day, the dinner ladies must have been having a meeting. Goody Two Shoes Phillipa Morris was on her own on tick-out duties; her farts probably didn’t even smell, she thought she was that perfect, but she can’t have been that perfect because I managed to shimmy my way past her while she was busy being the perfect prefect.
I was bang on time for my meeting outside the Rose & Crown, but to my utter disappointment there was no sign of Yvonne or Dadina. I could feel my heart sinking; first, there was the real chance that Mum was doing her shopping in the Londis next door. Secondly, I was worried about being caught outside the school when I wasn’t allowed out and thirdly, my dreams of dancing like Leroy were slipping away.
But, hold on – was that the sound of cork shoes on concrete? It certainly was, and there she was – 5, 6, 7, 8, and walk, 6, 7, 8. There she was, with her perfect rhythm.
I was frightened, but excited and my stomach was turning as I watched her approach. What if she said I couldn’t go to her classes? Perhaps I’d break down in tears – maybe that would work? It was an option that I was holding in the back of my mind if things didn’t turn out well.
I think you get what I mean when I say, ‘Dadina didn’t look like any other girl at school.’ Hello!
Before I knew it, there she was in front of me. She put her hand out and shook mine, and said, ‘Hello, Louie, my name is Dadina. Very nice to meet you.’
She was so grown up, even though she wasn’t quite 16.
‘Yvonne tells me you would like to come to my dancing school.’
Once I had caught my breath and tried to be as composed as an 11 going on 12-year-old could be – shaking on the inside, strong on the outside – I replied, ‘Yes, I would, please, thank you very much.’
‘How old are you?’
I knew that the admission age was 13, so I said 13, but Yvonne, thinking she was being really cool because she was Dadina’s new BF, said, ‘No, you’re not! You’re only 11.’
Don’t ask me where it came from, but I just shouted out, ‘Well, at least I don’t have brown towelling knickers, which are falling apart, and tits like a witch’s hat!’
This made Dadina laugh out loud, and she said, ‘I’ll make an exception this time. You can come on Saturday and let me see how you dance.’
Well, if you can imagine me at 11 going on 12, five foot nothing, screaming at the top of my voice, ‘Yes, yes, yes, I’ll be there!’ All those s’s, and with my balls not having dropped, my voice was so high-pitched, I almost cracked the windows of the Rose & Crown.
WITH A hop, skip, a jump and a turn, a high kick, a cartwheel and a back flip, I made my way back to school. And that’s not an exaggeration – I thought I would give Dadina a little preview of what I could do. I was determined there was no way she was going to turn me down. And she didn’t.
That Saturday morning when I arrived at Little Bardfield Hall, a 26-bedroom mansion with a massive barn where Dadina held her dance lessons, I was a triumph. I was wearing my best Lycra all-in-one. It was a deep maroon, long-sleeved, with stirrup foot, a scalloped neck and low-cut back.
If you think that sounds a bit feminine, you are right: it was a girls’ all-in-one, but they didn’t have them for boys. They didn’t even sell them, come to that, they had to order them in. All they sold was aerobics gear. When people say they’ve done aerobics and it’s just like dancing, it’s not at all, and neither is the attire. But the lady in the shop wouldn’t order just one boys’ unitard as she wouldn’t get her discount and I was the only boy in the town interested in them. So I made do with a girls’ one, which was nothing new to me, I was always in my sisters’ old clothes.
I never had a problem carrying something off with a feminine touch and I still don’t. So, back to me being a triumph. We started off with a nice slow warm-up and this wasn’t disco or ISTD, which is a dance syllabus: this was called modern jazz, which is what they did in the Fame class on TV. I was feeling dizzy, I was that excited – I couldn’t believe there was someone other than Lydia Grant (the Fame dance teacher played by Debbie Allen) who knew how to teach this style.
Once again, unlike my academic skills, I found it so easy. I didn’t have to think about it; whatever she taught, I followed with ease and I knew she could see it: I could see the smile on her face. I didn’t see any smiles on Donna Forrester or Yvonne O’Grady’s faces. They were her star pupils, until I arrived, and they were not happy. But hey, this was my destiny and no-one was going to mess with it – and they didn’t.
At the end of the class, Dadina sat down with us and told everyone how well I did, and how lovely it was to see someone with so much potential, especially a boy. She then told me that she would be happy to teach me and so that was the start of a wonderful friendship and a great learning experience.
FOR THE next year, as well as attending Doreen Cliff’s classes during the week, I would attend classes with Dadina every Friday night after school and stay overnight. At first this frightened the life out of me: the house was so big and so old, I was far too scared to sleep in a room on my own, as was Yvonne, who