The Girl in the Spotty Dress--Memories From the 1950s and the Photo That Changed My Life

by Pat Stewart

  She looked over at me, eyeing me up as though I was a prize horse. But I felt hollow inside. All I’d ever wanted to do was to dance and Mam knew it. Once we were outside her office, I tried to argue my case but my mother refused to listen.

  ‘Look, I know yer love yer dance, our Pat, but teaching’s a proper profession for a lady. Besides, yer’ll never get anywhere in life if yer have to dance for yer supper.’

  ‘But I don’t want to be a teacher, Mam. I want to dance – it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.’

  She realised how upset I was and her voice softened a little.

  ‘I know, love. But yer dance, well, that’s just a hobby, isn’t it? It’s not as though yer can make a career out of it, is it?’

  I watched in despair as she buttoned up her overcoat and stepped out into the schoolyard. It was spitting with rain, which mirrored exactly how miserable I felt inside.

  ‘No. Teaching is a proper job,’ Mam decided. ‘And that’s what yer should do – a proper job. Yer could have a good career for a woman. Yer’ve worked hard enough, so now’s time to reap t’rewards.’

  She opened up her umbrella and held it up to shelter herself against the drizzle. The rain pattered softly against my face, helping to disguise my tears.

  ‘But…’ I said, trying to change her mind.

  Mam turned and looked at me sternly, as though it was her final word on the matter. If the headmistress said I should become a teacher, that’s what I would become. It didn’t matter that she was just trying to turn me into a younger version of herself.

  ‘I want to be a dancer. It’s all I’ve ever wanted to do,’ I thought bitterly, as we walked along the rain-soaked cobbled streets towards home.

  Although my dance lessons had been a joy, I wondered how on earth I was going to find a job on stage that would convince both Mam and the headmistresses that dancing was, and could be, a solid career. My answer came sooner than I’d anticipated. One day, I was pottering about at home when I spotted a copy of the Yorkshire Post folded over on the kitchen table. Dad was an avid reader and took the paper every morning. I’d never read or even looked at it before now but something – a small ad at the bottom of the page – had caught my eye.

  ‘Chorus Girls required for pantomime at Leeds Theatre Royal, in December. Applications in person, at Theatre Royal Leeds, between 5 o’clock and 7 o’clock.’

  Underneath the advert was the address for the theatre – not that I needed it: I already knew where it was. Fate had handed me a chance. It was the answer to my dreams, and I knew I had to grab it with both hands. Instead of hanging around waiting to be discovered, I caught a bus to Leeds. Without telling my mother or dance teacher, I headed straight over to the theatre. The producers were already auditioning for the show when I arrived, so I took my place at the back of the queue.

  Later that evening, I returned home, triumphant and completely exhilarated, clutching a signed contract in my hand.

  ‘Yer looking pleased wi’yersen, young lady,’ Mam remarked as soon as I walked in the back door.

  ‘Guess what?’ I shrieked, running up to grab both her hands in mine. I couldn’t contain my excitement a moment longer.

  Mam looked up at me, a little startled.

  ‘Our Pat, whatever’s got into yer?’ she gasped. ‘And what’s that in yer hand?’ she asked, pointing down at the sheet of paper.

  ‘Mam, guess what?’ I blurted.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’ve just been chosen to dance in a pantomime at the Theatre Royal in Leeds. I’m going to be in Humpty Dumpty!’

  But she didn’t seem thrilled by the news.

  ‘Humpty Dumpty!’ she exclaimed. ‘No, yer bloody not!’

  She was so furious that she immediately took off her pinny, pulled on her overcoat and marched me off to see the headmistress to tell her what I’d done.

  ‘Humpty Dumpty indeed!’ she huffed, settling down in a chair as she repeated word for word what I’d told her.

  The headmistress listened, sat back and placed her hands together in an arch. She thought for a moment and then she spoke.

  ‘I think the best course of action is, when the pantomime is over, that Patricia take her higher certificate and train to become a teacher.’

  A flicker of a smile flashed across her face as she continued. ‘After all, I know Patricia, and I know that she will not want to dance in the chorus line at the back of the stage. That is when she will change her mind and become a teacher.’

  The two women exchanged a knowing smile, but I didn’t care because I’d just been granted permission!

  The headmistress must have been psychic because she was right about one thing, although it wasn’t the teaching. After a Christmas season dancing in the chorus line at the Theatre Royal, I decided that she was absolutely right – I didn’t want to be in the back row anymore. I wanted to be right up at the front. I’d trained in classical ballet but chorus-line dancing felt basic and boring in comparison. We’d only been there a week when I spotted a dozen glamorous ladies striding in through the stage door.

  ‘Who are they?’ I whispered to one of the other dancers as, one by one, they filtered onto the main stage.

  ‘Oh,’ she replied, her eyes wide and her voice filled with awe. ‘Those are the world-famous John Tiller Girls.’

  I was still none the wiser, so I stood in the wings and waited as the music started up. I watched in amazement as the dancers’ arms circled each other’s waists, and they began to high-kick in unison, in one long straight line.

  ‘Keep watching,’ my companion whispered as they began to turn, supporting one another, high-kicking in time to the music and turning like a well-oiled machine.

  As amazing as they looked en-masse, I was confident that I, too, would be good enough to join them. But first I knew I’d have to prove myself.

  I kept busy with rehearsals, which ran from 10am till 8pm Monday to Saturday. We were expected to learn all the songs and dance routines. The producer gave me a script to read, and I was thrilled when I landed the part of understudy to the principal boy – although, with my blonde hair and shapely figure, I couldn’t have been or looked more feminine. Each day I waited, biding my time until I’d summoned up enough courage to approach Miss Barbara, the Tiller Girls’ choreographer. One day, during a break in rehearsals, I saw my chance and marched over towards her. The nerves rose inside me, but I tried my best to hide them because I knew she’d never take me on if she thought I was a nervous, giggling schoolgirl. A dozen pair of eyes followed as I walked right up to her, cleared my throat and began to speak.

  ‘Excuse me, but I’d like to become one of your Tiller Girls,’ I announced, my voice quivering slightly, betraying my nerves.

  Miss Barbara looked me up and down. She was dressed in dark slacks, which made her look extremely slim and elegant. She inhaled a deep breath of air as she considered the skinny, tall, blonde teenager standing before her.

  ‘You’re in the chorus line, aren’t you?’ she remarked, guessing correctly.

  I nodded.

  ‘Yes, but I’ve decided that I’d like to join the Tiller Girls up front.’

  I flushed scarlet as I recalled what the headmistress had predicted only a few months earlier.

  ‘But you’ve signed a contract with Mr Laidler,’ she remarked.

  And that’s when it’d dawned on me. She was right. My heart sank to my boots as I realised I would be tied into it until the end of the panto season.

  ‘But after that. What about after that?’ I asked, suddenly picturing myself running across the freezing-cold fields at Lady Mabel College in gym knickers and a blouse. The thought alone was enough to send an icy shiver down my spine.

  Miss Barbara sized me up for a moment.

  ‘Very well, I’ll audition you with a view to including you in our summer season. How about that?’

  I was so thrilled that she was going to give me a chance that I thought I’d burst. I knew from that moment on that Miss Barbara w
ould be watching me, so I vowed to try my best all the time. I was still living at home, so I’d leave the house around 11.30am, returning home eleven hours later. Mam would pack me up with something for my tea to keep me going through the long day, but she’d always leave a helping of stew and dumplings on the stove ready for my return.

  The pantomime was a huge success. I loved everything about it: the buzz of being on stage, the costumes, the audience, the applause. At last, I felt as though I’d found my home – somewhere I truly belonged. I knew, from that moment on, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life on stage. At the end of the season, I marched up to Miss Barbara so that I could audition for her. With a new confidence gained from my stint on stage, I began. My audition involved a number of muscle kicks, which meant hopping about on one leg while kicking the other high in the air from the knee, without losing height between movements. I’d always been confident in my abilities as a dancer, but I was thrilled when she told me I’d not only got the job but I’d be travelling to Blackpool for a summer season with the Tiller Girls.

  ‘You’re tall, so you’d be perfect on the end of the line to hold it all together,’ she decided.

  Of course, Mam was disappointed and immediately made an appointment to see Dour Scot Mac. If Mam had been upset, it was nothing to how Mac felt about my chosen career.

  ‘To say I had such high hopes for you, Patricia Wilson,’ she said with a sniff. ‘But now you’ve thrown it all away, all your fine education, and for what? For a life on the stage.’

  It was obvious Mac looked down on showgirls. But to me, it seemed like the most exciting career in the world and now I was on my way. With six weeks to go until my Tiller Girl training, I signed on the dole. I soon learned that all the dancers did this. There wasn’t any shame in it because we always knew work would come with the change in season.

  If I thought I’d be bored waiting for my training to begin, I was mistaken. Weeks later I was chosen to be the Gala Queen for Featherstone’s Purston Park. The park needed to be officially opened by the Gala Queen, so I was driven through the village in an open-top car, joined on board by two younger attendants.

  ‘Are you nervous?’ I asked a younger girl sitting on my left-hand side.

  She looked up at me, gulped and then nodded. It was clear the sight of the gathering crowd ahead had left her rigid with fear.

  ‘Don’t be,’ I whispered, grabbing hold of her hand. ‘I’m right here beside you.’

  My Uncle Alf had written a short speech, which I read aloud, before cutting the ribbon and declaring the park officially open. More importantly, I was given a dress allowance, which I used to buy a beautiful brown suit from a shop in Featherstone. The suit came in handy for my journey to London, where I’d train for the next few months and learn how to dance like a Tiller Girl. The only problem was, I was a typical naïve Yorkshire lass and our digs were based in central London. I was only seventeen years old, but I soon found myself living in the middle of a place called Soho. Unsurprisingly, over the next few months I grew up pretty fast.

  CHAPTER 4

  BLACKPOOL BELLE

  ‘Look at that lady,’ I said, peering from an upstairs window at the Theatre Girls Club in Soho.

  It was my first evening there, and I’d been watching the woman in the street below for the best part of an hour.

  ‘She was there earlier. What do you think she’s doing?’ I asked, my eyes wide with innocence.

  One of the other girls approached, craned her neck to glance down at the pavement below and looked back at me with a surprised look on her face.

  ‘What? You mean you really don’t know?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Don’t know about what?’

  I didn’t have a clue what she was on about.

  A smirk spread across her face.

  ‘Why? What do you think she’s doing?’ The girl remarked, a hint of mirth in her voice.

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘Well, I really don’t have the foggiest idea but I’ve been watching her all afternoon. She meets a man in the doorway, takes him inside and then they both come out after a couple of minutes.’

  ‘A couple of minutes?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I said, looking down at my watch. ‘It’s usually a couple of minutes. But there was a man who went in earlier and he was a new record because he was in there for at least fifteen minutes.’

  The dancer threw back her head and snorted with laughter as she clasped the edge of a tea towel against her face. She used a corner of it to dab away tears of laughter, before glancing down at me perched on the window ledge.

  ‘Gosh, you really don’t know, do you?’ she said, shaking her head in pity.

  ‘Know what?’

  She bent down to get a better view of the street below.

  ‘That lady there,’ she said, pointing towards the woman standing in the shop doorway. ‘Well, she’s a brass nail.’

  ‘A brass nail?’ I repeated but I was still none the wiser.

  ‘You don’t know what a brass nail is, do you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘It’s cockney slang for tart. She’s a prostitute; a lady of the night.’

  I was bewildered. I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. I came from a small Yorkshire pit village, so I’d never even heard the word ‘prostitute’ before.

  ‘What’s a prostitute?’ I ventured.

  I knew I sounded stupid for asking but, if Soho was going to be my home for the next few weeks, I’d jolly well better find out – and quick!

  ‘It’s a woman who charges men for sex,’ the girl said bluntly. ‘That’s why she takes them inside. She has sex with them and they pay her. This is Soho. It’s what happens, so you’d better get used to it. And,’ she said, turning back to face me, ‘whatever you do, don’t go talking to any strange men!’

  Although she was one of the new girls, it seemed she was so much more knowledgeable than me.

  I watched in disbelief as another man – a decent and well-heeled gentleman – approached the lady on the street below. He tipped his hat in greeting as she smiled and led him inside.

  ‘No! Don’t go inside with her – she’s a brass nail!’ I shouted, banging the heel of my hand against the windowpane.

  But he did. They all did. If anything, the daily comings and goings of Soho folk taught me never to judge a book by its cover. The woman, although distinctly middle-aged, had also looked quite normal. Her ‘clients’ even more so, almost as though they were coming back from a long day in the office. I could just imagine them heading home to their unsuspecting wives and children – respectable fathers and husbands but also men who visited prostitutes.

  I lived in a shared dormitory with seven girls at the Theatre Girls Club. It was home to dozens of girls who were either in between shows or still in training. Our digs were situated in Soho’s Greek Street in a very old and crumbling brick building, which looked and felt a bit like a workhouse. The accommodation had its own warden – a woman called Miss Bell. She was backed by an assistant called Emily, who was so prim and proper, she looked as though she’d just walked out of the pages of an Emily Brontë novel. Both women were Scottish and extremely serious. Miss Bell was much smaller than Emily and wore a dark cardigan and a skirt that skimmed her ankles. Her cardigan was always covered with wisps of grey hair that had escaped from a severe bun, which she wore tight at the nape of her neck. In many ways, with her dour personality, Sunday-school teacher outfit and strict rules, she reminded me of my old headmistress, Dour Scot. A lot of the time, it felt like being back at school.

  ‘Rules and times are there to be obeyed, girls,’ Miss Bell would scold if anyone was late for breakfast.

  Outside, in Greek Street and the surrounding area, it was a little ‘lively’, which meant we weren’t allowed to venture out after dark. Our curfew was a respectable 8.30pm and woe betide any girl who broke the rules because she would be immediately expelled from the dance troupe. Not that we ev
er did, because we were terrified we’d lose our coveted place in the Tiller Girls. However, the curfew meant we were unable to watch night-time shows. This annoyed me greatly because, being an Equity member since the pantomime in Leeds, I was able to go to any cinema or theatre completely free of charge.

  Our evening meal was meagre, to say the least, and we were expected to clear away after ourselves and wash and dry our own dishes. The Theatre Girls Club was as far removed from the glamorous world of show business as you could imagine. Our day consisted of dance rehearsal at the John Tiller School, which was a stone’s throw from where we boarded. We’d wake up around 8am to make rehearsals, which started at 10am prompt, with a short break for lunch. We were all responsible for our own lunch, so we’d feast on bits of bread and cheese because they were cheap. During rehearsals, we’d practise muscle kicks, where the knee was held at waist level, with the kick coming from the knee. We’d practise until our legs ached so much that they felt as though they were hanging on by a thread at the end of the day.

  Cross, cross, tap heel to right, tap heel to left, muscle kick, kick, kick down…

  It was a boring and monotonous routine but we had to rehearse until our timing was absolutely perfect. It was thoroughly exhausting, but I soon learned that the best remedy for tired calf muscles was to lie on the floor with my legs flat up against the wall. It wasn’t very ladylike – I could just imagine my old headmistress shaking her head in despair – but it always seemed to do the trick. We wore black knickers, a white blouse and a black dickie bow for rehearsals and would dance for up to eight hours a day. As Tiller Girls in training, we were paid £5 a week, but we’d have thirty bob deducted at source to pay for our bed and board. We were all required to be members of Equity and were expected to pay our membership every season, which cost us another couple of quid each. If someone forgot to pay their dues or was late with payment, the Equity representative would come to the theatre looking for them. They’d literally chase them across London if they had to!