Better Late Than Never

by Len Goodman

  'Len, all you need to do is press play when it's time for us to come on,' Stephen explained. 'We have this fanfare that we've recorded to announce our arrival.'

  Times really have changed, I thought. When it was time for their entry I pressed play on the cassette player, fully expecting to hear the Hillier's fanfare. There was nothing, just silence. I had already given them the big build-up, announced their names, so I got back on the microphone. 'One, two...Stephen, sorry, nothing's happening.' Stephen then popped his head round the door looking less than impressed – he was probably thinking I'd messed up their big entrance.

  'Are you sure you've pressed the play button, Len?'

  'Yes, I'm sure I have.'

  'Is it on side one?' asked the frustrated-sounding Stephen Hillier.

  'Of course it is, but naturally I'll check.'

  I couldn't help being a bit sarcastic. What does he think I am? Stupid? was what I was thinking as I walked across to the cassette deck. At the same time Stephen, dressed in his tailcoat, looking very suave, started walking across the room – we both arrived at the cassette player at the same time to see what I had done. I'd not only pressed the play button, I'd also pressed record, which meant I'd erased their precious fanfare as well as several minutes of their opening number. All I could do was apologise, while also going very red in the face with embarrassment.

  Not long after we moved to the pub we decided to start a new beginners' class. This was going to be my very own class, not one that I had inherited from Joy after Henry's passing. We put an advert in the local paper. 'New beginners' classes teaching all dances for social success. Still the Erith Dance Studio, now relocated to the George public house. Commences Tuesday 10 September, 8 p.m. till 10 p.m.' We had high hopes of filling the class, which would be some worthwhile extra money for the business. We had some additional costs associated with the move; a casualty of our relocation was the tea bar, which couldn't be re-established in the pub's hall. Prior to our first class I went to buy a new tea urn along with some reject cups and saucers. Pauline, Cherry and I set all this up on a table at one end of the hall, although not too close to the toilet, and by 7.45 we made sure it was full of hot water, there was milk and sugar, and a plate of digestive biscuits, and so we were ready for the onslaught of new dancers.

  By ten to eight no one had turned up. At five to eight, two couples walked in, but that was it, no one else showed up. I was hoping for at least 40 people, and here I was with just four. It was all a bit of a disaster, not least because to teach 20 couples takes a lot longer than just two; with more pupils there's a lot more banter, lots more stops and starts, and teaching the class expands to fill the available time. But not with two it doesn't. What I had planned to take two hours took just 20 minutes. I had to improvise and so, even with a lengthy tea break – 'Do have a second cuppa, we have plenty' – they had learned the basics in four ballroom dances and a smattering of Latin American as well. After it was all over the three of us sat down to talk it over. We were devastated. There was also the expense of the advert, which only added to the sense of failure. We were crushed. What we couldn't know at that moment was just how valuable these four people would be to the business; valuable because both couples came to me for lessons for over 20 years. They paid for that advert a thousand times over.

  In 1973 we finally found a place for our new school. It was in Dartford: number 27 The High Street – it was a search that had taken close to three years. The studio was not ideal: it was over some shops, on the top floor above two floors of offices; there was a climb of 54 stairs to get to our new dance school. Once there, the pupils were confronted by four pillars around which they had to navigate. It was a case of beggars can't be choosers, especially as we were all fed up with teaching in the pub; it wasn't just the problems of pub-goers and their antics, it was the lack of security of tenure for the business, which was by now going from strength to strength. In Dartford we got a 21- year lease, with rent for the first seven years of £20 per week, which doesn't sound like very much, but it was a fair rent for the property.

  We planned to open in a month on a budget of £1,000 to complete all the renovations and remodelling. It was every penny of our savings. We needed to lay a dance floor, build a tea bar, there were lights, a hi-fi system and there was the painting and decorating on top of all that. Luckily, when you run a dance school you meet people from every walk of life, from every background and from many different professions. There was a ready-made work force of electricians and carpenters but there was only thing I didn't have: someone to lay the floor.

  Before our pupils could start to climb the 54 steps, everything involved in the renovation had to be taken up the same way. For most things it was a challenge, but when it came to the material for laying the floor it proved to be a nightmare. There was no choice but to bring in a specialist floor-laying company. On the first day the two men from the company turned up at 7 a.m. To me, not yet 30, they looked to be close to retirement age; they were not just past their sell-by, they looked past their use-by date. The plan was to unload their vehicle before the traffic got bad. It proved to be every bit 'a plan' as neither bloke would carry any of the heavy stuff: they were only prepared to hump the light stuff. After they had shifted a few mops and tins of polish we reached an impasse.

  'Don't worry, I'll carry the heavy stuff up for you.' I must have been mad, but I was also desperate. On the back of their truck were eight foot by four foot by one inch sheets of chipboard that were to be laid across the whole of the studio floor to provide a firm base for the actual dance surface. In all there were 40 pieces of these seriously heavy sheets; after five sheets I knew I had bitten off more than I could chew. As I walked out to contemplate my sixth sheet I bumped into Polecat Smith, an odd-job man I knew from around the town; his main trade, if you could call it that, was taking lead out of car batteries.

  'Whacha, Len, you look like you're sweating a bit.' Polecat wore a railway man's cap that had once had a shiny peak to it but after years of straightening his cap with hands covered in battery acid it had eventually rotted clean away. His cap now looked more like something that a nineteenth-century US cavalryman might have worn.

  I had first got to know him through my old mate Pete Dawson. We had gone to Polecat's home because Pete needed a reconditioned car battery.

  Polecat lived on Dartford Marsh in three railway carriages, none of which had wheels; these were all linked together as a bizarre substitute for a normal home. As we drove up the dirt track leading to Polecat's place he eyed us suspiciously, while at the same time he continued examining one of his horse's front legs.

  'And what can we do for you?' he said, as if he and the horse were in partnership. We had heard he was suspicious of strangers. We'd also heard that he sometimes ran errands for a notorious gypsy family. Apparently, if the gypsies were having problems with anyone they sent Polecat along to hit them over the head with a hammer; not exactly a scene out of The Godfather, but I'd heard it said that he got three quid a time for his efforts.

  Pete said he wanted a car battery so Polecat became somewhat less suspicious and invited us inside. We entered the first railway carriage, which was obviously his 'living quarters'. Instead of normal seats there were a couple of bench seats out of a Ford Zephyr: sitting on one of the seats was a donkey.

  'Go on, get out, you stupid bloody donkey.' As Polecat started waving his arms around, four chickens appeared from beneath the seat, fluttering and squawking about the place. By now our eyes had adjusted to the gloom inside the carriage, a gloom that was barely lifted by three naked 40-watt light bulbs that were strung along its length. In the corner was a sink, which had no taps on it; next to it was a bizarre-looking kitchen cabinet with two opening cupboards at the top and a centre one that pulled down to make a work surface, and this was all resting on two piles of breeze blocks. In the corner was a 14-inch Bush black and white television set with a convex-like magnifying glass in front of it to make the picture watchable. />
  'You boys wanna a cuppa?'

  'Err, no thanks, we've just had one.' I imagined it would result in a case of acid poisoning at the very minimum. We ended up paying for a battery for Pete's Cortina and left as quickly as we could.

  All of this explains how I came to be on passing acquaintance terms with Polecat Smith. 'Want to earn yourself a fiver, Polecat?' I asked, thinking it was probably going to be a lot harder earned than hitting someone over the head with a hammer – although not potentially as costly.

  'Sounds good, what is it?'

  'Well, I've got to get all these chipboard sheets up to the third floor.' I'd hardly finished speaking and Polecat had grabbed two sheets and was off up the stairs. At that moment Alan came along: we only knew him as Alan, although we never called him that, except to his face. Everyone called him Neanderthal Man, because he truly was the missing link. He was barely five foot tall but his arms reached down past his knees.

  'Hello, Alan, want to earn yourself a fiver?'

  Very soon the two of them were carting the chipboard flats, the floor sander and every other piece of equipment and materials from the back of the floor-layer's lorry to the top floor of the building. I haven't seen Polecat around for years so I assume he's dead now. It's strange because there are not those kinds of characters around any more; then again maybe I'm now moving in different circles.

  Two weeks before the renovations were scheduled to finish I put an advert in the paper to announce the grand opening of the Len Goodman Dance Centre. Following the failure of just the two couples turning up for the new class at the pub years earlier I had learned a valuable lesson. Rule number one – never place the advert on anything but the front page of the local paper if you want a decent result. My front-page banner announcement invited new and old pupils to come along, admission was free, there were free refreshments and the evening would run from 7 p.m. until 10 p.m. One hundred and fifty-four people – new faces, old faces, some of whom I hadn't seen for years – made it to the top of the stairs. We were on our way. I had achieved my destiny: I was a dance teacher in Dartford.

  Chapter Eight

  Success Comes in Cans

  The three years between the Erith Dance School closing in 1970 and our new school opening in 1973 were a mixture of good and bad times – although they were much more the former than the latter. Most of all they were very busy times. We were on a roller-coaster ride of teaching, competing and demonstrating, not only in the UK, but also all over Europe, and especially in Germany. We never seemed to slow down, but I must admit, they were also very exciting years. Whenever you start something new, especially when you're young and full of energy, you get carried along on a wave of adrenalin. Mum and Dad were pleased that things were working out so well for me. With the benefit of hindsight I have no doubt that they had their doubts that their Len would amount to anything very much. I was still living at home with Mum, but was also seeing plenty of Dad and Rene; all in all family life was fine.

  The first competition Cherry and I entered after our two at the Albert Hall was the Kent Championship at the Royston Ballroom in Penge. This was back to the reality of dancing competitively when you're just starting out. I soon found that different judges liked different things and there wasn't necessarily a pattern to what they liked and didn't like. It's just like when I'm on the television judging now: sometimes I feel very differently from one or all of my fellow judges. While certain things are 'by the book' other things come down to personal taste. In the Kent Championships it had been a split vote. Some of the judges liked what we did, although not enough and we ended up coming third; we won a fiver. I also came third in the raffle, winning a six-foot length of hosepipe. I never did find out exactly what it was for because it never seemed to reach far enough when I wanted to use it. A year later we won our local championships.

  It was a struggle to try to make it as professional dancers as well as running the dance school in the pub. Without a lot of help from Mum, I would have to have gone back to a proper job. For a while I even sold insurance for an American company to tide us over because there was not a lot of money to go around; Joy and Cherry were quite rightly taking the lion's share. But then Cherry and I had an enormous bit of luck around the time the Erith Dance School was closing. The first was through Henry Kingston's friend, Frank Mayne, the Dance Director of Pontin's who telephoned us right out of the blue.

  'Len, I was wondering if you and Cherry would like to do some demonstrating for us?'

  The gods had spoken, or at least one had.

  Holiday camps had a pecking order as far as popularity was concerned. Top of the tree was Butlins, with Sir Billy Butlin and his Redcoats; next came Pontin's and the Bluecoats; later on came Warner with their Yellowcoats. Later still Fred Pontin started his Pontinental camps, which started to spring up in Spain – very posh if you could afford it. The Bluecoats at Pontin's were the entertainment staff and they became megastars, a bit like Britney Spears or Paris Hilton are today. Everybody wanted to have a photograph with them and were proud when they sat down for a cup of tea at your table. From what I understand the Bluecoats had no shortage of girls to take back to their chalets. I asked once where Jack, one of the goodlooking boys, was. 'He's got chalet rash.' I didn't like to ask what that was.

  The chalets were little more than wooden sheds in rows. They had a bed and a wardrobe with bunk beds for kids – but no television, unlike today where each camp has its own TV station broadcasting what's on. The main building was a much more substantial affair; it was also where the ballroom dancing took place. If the camps had a restaurant this was where it would be. Camber Sands was self-catering, so each chalet had a small kitchen with a gas stove and a fridge. At the end of the night's entertainment everyone would sing 'Goodnight Campers'. I'm sure it sounds corny but remember, after six years of war and the end of rationing in the fifties, it all seemed so sophisticated.

  Frank Mayne from Pontin's said he would like us to do, not just one show a week, but also a whole series of them. We were to demonstrate on a Monday night at Camber Sands, Tuesday we were to go to Lowestoft to a camp called Pakefield, from there we would drive up to Great Yarmouth. Here there were two camps, right opposite one another – Seacroft was one and the other Hemsby. It meant that we could drive home on a Monday, while on Tuesday we stayed at Pakefield and drove up to Great Yarmouth on Wednesday night. The only downside to this whole plan was the fact that we needed to drive home immediately after we'd finished our second show at either Hemsby or Seacroft because we couldn't afford to be away from the school for any longer than necessary, but there was a huge upside – we got £25 per show, £100 per week which was a fabulous amount of money in 1970.

  Not only was it good money, but also it helped me to develop as a bit of a showman, a role that I naturally played up in my classes. My gift of the gab came in handy yet again. All the entertainment at the camps was free, which meant people showed up for things whether or not they were interested; if people pay for something they go out of their way to enjoy it more. It was difficult to make a show out of just demonstrating a bit of Latin American dancing so I would get on the microphone and start the banter – it became my trademark. I learned a lot about working a crowd, and in some cases a lot less than a crowd. By the end of the last week in September, the end of the season, there might be 15 people in a camp ballroom designed to hold hundreds. They'd often all be old-age pensioners and half of them would be asleep. My technique was simple: I would step out and imagine I was on the biggest stage in the country, with the place full to overflowing. Having said that, during the height of the season it was really buzzing, the ballrooms were full and the Bluecoats organised dance competitions; everyone had a ball.

  The other great piece of luck came about because we would go practising twice a week at one of the ballrooms in and around London to mix with other dancers. I really believe that you should practise alone to become good, but you also need to go into an environment where there are better da
ncers so as to learn from them and to improve your floorcraft – the ability to get around people on the dance floor. Outside of the holiday camp season we would go to Sydney Francis' studio in Balham on a Monday night, Tuesdays we would go to the Hammersmith Palais, because that was always ballroom dancing night, on Wednesday we went to a bloke called Bob Burgess in Dulwich and on Thursdays to Benny Tolmeyer's studio.

  One weekend Cherry's mum had made her a new practice dress, so all day Monday, while we practised at the pub, Cherry kept saying, 'Let's go over to Balham this evening.' I wasn't so keen. Having spent four hours working solidly on our routines I wanted a night in. However, I finally relented despite feeling knackered. My heart definitely wasn't in it but I knew that she wanted to show off her new dress to all her dancing friends. Not that Cherry was overly bothered about dancing that evening: it was all about the dress and so we mostly sat around watching others. I knew that she wanted to see how the skirt flared up when she danced, and so when a jive came on she said, 'Oh come on, Len, don't be a spoilsport.'

  We jived and as soon as we'd finished we sat back down; Cherry was happy, her skirt flared perfectly. A minute or two later a couple came over and said in heavily accented English, 'We think your jiving is brilliant.'

  'Where are you from?' I asked.

  'Ve're from Germany and ve're here for another three days. That gentleman,' said the man, pointing to Sydney Francis, 'said you give lessons and ve vere vondering if you could teach us?'