Better Late Than Never

by Len Goodman

  'Oh Cherry, Len, we've had a terrible time. You know we have the two Alsatians, well it's Alphonso – he's been so bad.' They lived in Primrose Hill and had apparently popped over to Hammersmith to get something. 'We took Alphonso with us and instead of taking the Citroën we took the Rolls. We left the dog in the back of the car while we went into the shop. I swear we were only gone about 25 minutes, but Alphonso must have got frustrated or something. We had left the window on one side of the car open so he had some air. We told him to stay on that side so he could breathe it more easily. To encourage him to stay that side we put the armrest down. Do you know what he did? He ate the armrest!'

  On another occasion she was talking to Cherry after our lesson had finished and said, 'This morning I went over to Bond Street and bought this dress in Fenwick's, how does it look?'

  'It looks absolutely lovely, Miss Lavell,' Cherry said, because it did.

  'Well, that's good because unfortunately they only had it in a 14, but I wanted to wear it for dinner tonight. Do you think anyone will notice?'

  With that, she turned around to reveal that the back of the dress was stapled together to make it smaller. The bloke downstairs from the dance studio had a furniture business and Doris had got him to do it with his staple gun.

  Still, we worked hard when we went to the Soho studio, because to become a recognised teacher with the Imperial Society takes a long time. First you have to become an Associate, which is quite an arduous exam. Then once you have passed that, you have to wait two years before you can take your second exam, which was then called the Membership but it's now known as the Licentiate. It's not just that there's a twoyear wait to take it, it's because it takes you two years to learn all you need to pass the exam. You have to wait a further five years to take your Fellowship; so it takes eight or nine years to complete the process. During all this time I trained with Doris and we became very close friends. She was a wonderful teacher to whom I owe a great deal and a very good lady to have counted as a friend.

  While teaching was now my day job, so to speak, competing was also very important to Cherry and myself – we were really ambitious. If you wanted to succeed in the competitive dance world it required not just skill and dedication: there was also a certain amount of politics involved in getting to the top. There were far less teachers then than there are now, which is what made the whole thing so political. When I began my professional career there were only four top coaches: Nina Hunt, Walter Laird, Doris Lavell and a chap called Sidney Francis. All of them had strong and differing opinions about dance. As a dancer, if you went to Doris you had to dance her way; if you went to Nina Hunt her methods were different, as were Walter Laird's, and Sidney Francis just had a mixture of them all.

  As a competitive dancer you had to go to all these teachers because they also judged a lot of competitions. The truth was that unless you were in with them all, at least a little bit, and they knew you, you had a cat in hell's chance of doing well. Not that by going to all four guaranteed success because very nearly every serious competitive couple was doing exactly the same thing. It was an open secret that dancers went to all of the coaches but it was not the done thing to mention to a particular teacher that you had been having lessons with one of their so-called competitors. Being a bit more of a 'cor blimey, come on, Nina, let's sort this out' kind of a guy may have helped me: on the other hand she may well have been irritated with me being a bit over-familiar, but I got away with it. If others who went to Wally Laird dared to even mention Nina Hunt's name they were history. For whatever reason Doris liked Wally Laird and he didn't mind her too much, but mention Nina's name to Doris and that would start her off something rotten – they were the worst of enemies. I'm sure too that my dancing with Cherry, and their affection for the late Henry Kingston, also helped me get along, where others might have struggled.

  Nina Hunt, as far as I know, never competed but she was a great coach, Walter Laird both danced and competed, Sydney Francis never competed, nor did Doris Lavell. Whereas technically Doris was very, very good, Nina Hunt was great at choreography. Walter Laird was great for taking Nina Hunt's choreography and teaching you how to do it much better; but for God's sake don't tell him it was her choreography! Nina Hunt had good ideas for steps and was good at showing you them, not teaching them, but showing you. It was just the same in ballroom dancing: there were certain ballroom teachers you would go to who would be good at teaching the quickstep while others would be good at other dances.

  We also began being coached by Len Scrivener, the husband of Nellie Duggan, who I mistook for Nina Hunt when we went over to Balham for our very first lesson. Len was an absolute character as well as a lovely man.

  'So what dance would you like to show me to start with?' enquired Len at our first lesson.

  I said we'd try the waltz, so he selected a 78 record, put it on and we started to dance. Well, I was bloody amazed, and a little cross, because Len stared out of the window. What I didn't realise at the time was that he was watching our reflections. When we finished he asked, 'What were you trying to portray to me in that waltz?'

  'Well,' I said, 'first of all I wanted to show you the beauty of the dance, a beautiful rise and fall, a lovely sway of the shoulders, a swing of the body as we moved through each bar of the music. We wanted to characterise some of the basic steps as well as some of the intricate moves that you can achieve during the waltz.'

  'Well, you failed on every section,' Len replied.

  So began the first lesson with Len Scrivener, a man who won the British championships two or three times – a legend and a maverick.

  Len was an eccentric and over the few years having lessons with him we became very friendly. I was always trying to encourage him to go to Blackpool – the Mecca of ballroom dancing where they hold the championships every year.

  'Come on, Len, you'll love it, what is the matter with you?'

  'I'll never step foot in that ballroom ever again,' was all Len would say. It was daft because he was a legend as a dancer and an extremely good teacher whom the organisers would have loved to have been there as a judge. Finally, I think it was in 1974, he relented and said he would grace Blackpool with his presence. That was only half the battle, because Nellie was adamant that she wasn't going.

  'We're never going up that bleedin' hole, you'll never see us in bloody Blackpool.'

  After some more cajoling she relented and I said I would go and pick them up and drive them to Blackpool along with Cherry. I booked us at the Clifton Hotel in Talbot Square, and come the day of our departure I picked them up 8.30 a.m. At around 11 o'clock we decided to stop for breakfast at the services on the M1, and having parked up the four of us trooped into the place that had waitress service. I ordered a toasted teacake and some tea, Cherry and Len said they'd have the same and Nellie said, 'You know what? I'd like that early starter.' This was a cooked breakfast special.

  'Ah, I'm awfully sorry,' the waitress said, 'but you can only have the early starter until 11.'

  'Listen here,' said Len. 'It's three minutes after 11 and my dear lady wife would like the early starter so surely you can rustle that up for her, please?'

  'No, I'm very sorry, it's only on until 11 o'clock,' insisted the waitress.

  That was it. Without another word Len stood up and started shouting. 'Get me the manager! Bring him to me this instant.'

  It gave me an inkling into why he might have fallen out with the Blackpool people.

  Nevertheless, word had gone out that Len was going to the championships. It became the buzz of the dance world: the Messiah Scrivener is coming to Blackpool. Whatever his faults he was a genius at teaching. One day when we were learning the tango, for which there was no better teacher, he said to me, 'Len, the whole dance is lacking any atmosphere, you're just going through the motions and there's no atmosphere.'

  'Well, what is atmosphere?' I asked Scrivener.

  'Atmosphere is the outward expression of an inner emotion.'

  Brillia
nt!

  On another occasion Len Scrivener taught me what I thought was a particularly difficult bit and after practising it with Cherry I couldn't seem to get it. The following week I went back and said, 'What you taught me really didn't feel right when I did it.'

  He offered me some brilliant advice. 'Let me tell you a story about my dog Bubbles. I take him for a walk every morning and I meet a man named Mr Jackson who has a dog called Fluff. I've been seeing him and his dog now for years. Mr Jackson walked in a very strange way, he was buckled over and his right shoulder was very low and he was bent forward at a very strange angle. About six months ago I stopped seeing Mr Jackson and for several months he just disappeared. One morning, however, who should I see coming towards me but Fluff followed by a man walking perfectly normally, it took me several moments to recognise Mr Jackson. He was straight, straight as a ramrod, walking proudly. I was completely amazed at his transformation.

  '"Mr Jackson where have you been?"

  'He told me that during the war a piece of shrapnel had lodged at the base of his spine, which is what made him walk in that bizarre way. He went on to tell me that the doctors thought it would be impossible to operate. Then a new surgeon saw him who said he could do it, so he had had the operation and everything had worked out fine. Then Mr Jackson said something amazing, "So now here I am walking upright, but I must say it feels funny."'

  This was Len Scrivener's way of telling me that how you feel when you dance is nothing to do with how you look.

  One of my favourite dance teacher stories was one told to me by Walter Laird. One day he complained about the way I was dancing.

  'Len, you're dancing too soft, you've got to get toned, you've got to get some toning in you.'

  'Well, I understand what toning is but not how it applies to dancing.'

  'Well, not like that, Len, because that's too stiff, I don't want stiff. Imagine a businessman who has taken his secretary on a dirty weekend to Brighton. She's 35 years younger than him and she's lying on the bed – naked. He's in the bathroom cleaning his teeth when he realises he's left his dressing gown on the other side of the room and he has to walk out of the bathroom, across the room, to his side of the bed. The way he walked? That's toning.'

  It's the brilliance of the best teachers: they tell you things that lodge in your brain for ever. They helped me become a better dancer and helped me become a better teacher as well – not to mention the fact that I now know exactly how to walk naked around a bedroom.

  There's a brilliant saying, 'If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.' That's what I've always tried to do. These old teachers had great ways and that's how I learnt to explain things better. It's from them that I learned some of the funny expressions like 'all sizzle and no sausage'. Mind you, I also got some good things from my dad. He'd watch my competitive dances and say things like, 'I don't know what's right, but I know that's wrong.'

  It's only fair to point out that I was never a world-class dancer: I'm not where I am today for being a dancing great! Much like in many walks of life, whether it's sports, the arts or something else where people are judged, you get the good and the great. I was a good dancer, whereas Cherry was a great dancer, which was a huge advantage for me and to us as a dancing couple. We also got where we did through hard work and perseverance, by working that extra bit harder than many couples. I capitalised on our advantage of having Cherry's huge talent to move us up through the ranks of competitive dancing. However, much like in football, golf, horse racing or whatever else, from among the greats there comes, maybe every ten years or so, a true great – a legend. In the dance world it's these very few dancers or teachers that take Latin or ballroom to another level. They revolutionise the way that things are done. Well, that was never me. As a dancer I got as far as I did because I was blessed with having a great partner and was prepared to work harder than most.

  Cherry and I were not only dance partners but we also became boyfriend and girlfriend. I cannot say we became a partnership in the living-together sense, because that was something that was much less common in those days. We became romantically involved, like many dancing couples, because we lived in each other's pockets. I don't want to make it sound mercenary and calculating, because it wasn't, and there is no denying that Cherry was a pretty girl. But we just slipped into our relationship from what started out as a kiss on the cheek, to a kiss on the lips and then, well, I'll just leave that to your imagination.

  In the months and years after Henry died I worked tirelessly to become a better teacher, while at the same time working on being a better dancer. I learned from every teacher that has ever given me a lesson. Sometimes what I learned was a new or brilliant way to teach; other times a teacher perhaps showed me through their teaching method how not to teach. In dancing you never stop learning, which is why I've always said that dancing is just like life. All this learning, teaching and training was hard work even for a fit 25-year-old, but there was another more tricky problem that had been waiting in the wings for some time, and it was now time for it to take centre stage.

  There had been talk for quite a while about Erith being given a bit of a makeover, a rejuvenation I think they called it. Things like that were all the rage in the late sixties. Finally in 1970 it happened, and the dance studio on Pier Road was, along with a number of other properties, cited for compulsory purchase by the local council. Their plan was to pull our building down and redevelop the area into a car park. Joy, Cherry and I wanted to keep the school going, and so while we looked for new premises we decided to move the school to temporary accommodation. Our theory was that we would soon find a new permanent home, but in practice we spent three long and difficult years running a dance school in the pub. It was the George in the High Street in Erith, and when I say it was in the pub it was actually behind the bar area in a hall-like annexe. While it was not the most salubrious of places it was a lovely big space, which in many respects was actually better than the old studio. We had our own entrance so our pupils could come into the hall without having to go through the pub itself. However, we soon found there was a downside. The pub toilets were at the back of our hall, which meant there was continuous traffic all through our evening sessions with men going to and from the john. At the start of the evening the men, on their way to the toilet, would quietly walk past the class with their heads averted towards the wall, repeating their routine on the way back. Unfortunately, after they'd had a few pints they would be foxtrotting up the side of the hall with their mates, looking not unlike Peggy Spencer's formation dance team who regularly appeared on TV's Come Dancing.

  Before moving to the pub, and by way of a farewell to the old Erith Dance Studio, we held a dance on the night before we were to vacate the premises. We booked Richard Gleave and Janet Wade, who had recently turned professional but were also the reigning British and World Amateur Champions, to give a demonstration. Richard and Janet later married and went on to become one of the greatest ever British professional dance couples, winning the World Championships eight times in all.

  This was the first time I had organised anything like this; actually it was the first time I'd ever really organised anything. I was anxious to make a good impression on Joy and Cherry, but also I wanted to impress the pupils, who we hoped would continue with us at our new premises. The day before the event I checked over the equipment. We had one of those really large record players for the 78-rpm heavy-duty shellac discs; it was the kind of player on which you had to change the needle regularly to avoid damaging the records. It was connected to a large valve amplifier, which used to get very hot after it had been in use for a while. As well as checking the equipment I checked over our collection of Victor Silvester records, assuring myself that nothing could go wrong. My next task was to have a dry run of the full evening's programme: first of all I wrote it all down so that I had a detailed running order. I noted the times of the recordings, when Richard and Janet would enter, which track I was using from whi
ch record and so on; it filled several sheets of paper because I left nothing to chance.

  When Richard and Janet arrived at the studio they gave me the music that they were going to dance to. This was a period when there was crossover between 45-rpm singles, 331/3 LPs and 78s, so it was a complex business trying to organise different speeds, as well as different tracks. While Richard and Janet were changing in the upstairs studio I was busy playing records so our pupils could dance. And while our regulars were going through their paces I was going over things one last time to avoid any slip-ups. The Gleaves' first song was a waltz, track five on a Tony Bennett LP that they had given me when they arrived. Next up was a tango, track nine on an Edmundo Ros LP. Come time for their first dance and I put the needle exactly on to the start of the Tony Bennett track, and stood back to not only admire Richard and Janet's dancing but also to congratulate myself on my skill as a DJ; was there no end to my talents? There didn't seem to be, as the evening went off without a hitch, helped by the fact that every time Richard and Janet came to do another demonstration dance, my needle-dropping skills proved unfailing. When they finished I went to thank them. They both said how much they had enjoyed the evening, before Richard added: 'Len, could you let me have our records back, as knowing me I'll forget them when we leave.'

  'Of course, Richard.'

  I went back downstairs and picked their records off the amplifier cabinet where I had carefully laid them after putting them back inside their sleeves. To my horror I found they had melted and buckled. Not just the one next to the amplifier but the whole lot. Luckily I was able to buy them new ones. Richard and I are still great mates although he still occasionally reminds me of that night in Erith.

  Many years later I had Stephen and Lindsey Hillier do a demonstration; it was before they were married. They had been British Amateur Champions and had turned professional. By this time cassette players had replaced records, for the most part, so there was less to go wrong, or so I thought. Stephen gave me their cassette, which contained all the dances that they were to perform, briefing me as to when I needed to pause it between some of their dances so that they could change outfits.