by Tony Hawks
I looked at the piece in the magazine to which Fran had directed me. It explained that the village hall was in something of a crisis. No reason was given why, but apparently the entire committee had resigned, and nobody had put themselves forward to replace them. Unless a new committee was found, then the village hall would end up being locked permanently.
‘Are you thinking that you should stand for the committee?’ I asked Fran.
‘No, I was wondering whether you should.’
I had never been on a committee in my life. The very word sent shivers down my spine. It conjured up images of grey people, sitting around grey tables on grey days, discussing what particular shade of grey to paint the walls. Committees were flair-free zones. Bastions of boredom. Forums for elongated discussion rather than instant action. An ‘Emergency Committee’ was an oxymoron. Like Rasputin or Caligula, I wasn’t a committee man. (The comparison ends here.)
‘I’m not sure that I’m the stuff of committees,’ I said.
‘Me neither.’
The short discussion was halted as we looked out across the valley to the green hills that formed our morning tableau. The beauty soothed. It bathed us in goodness. Maybe that’s why I returned to the subject with more generosity of spirit.
‘It would be a shame if the village lost the hall,’ I said.
‘I agree,’ said Fran.
Metaphorically, we were standing on a sea cliff, wondering whether we should jump into the waters below. I peered over the edge.
‘I guess you’ve got to have a committee to get things done.’
Fran looked over too.
‘Yes, someone has to do this kind of stuff or it just doesn’t get done.’
Several minutes later we had joined hands and jumped.
We’d decided that we would both put ourselves forward. Neither of us admitted it, but mixed up in our good intentions there’d been the less noble element of ‘if I’m going to suffer this, then you should too’.
‘How do we let them know?’ I asked.
‘There’s an Annual General Meeting coming up, where volunteers for a new committee need to make themselves known, otherwise the hall will close.’
‘And when’s that?’
‘Next Tuesday.’
‘Right.’
A thought occurred to me.
‘Do you actually know what happens up at the village hall?’
‘No, but it says here,’ said Fran, finger delving into the parish magazine, ‘that there’s a new Zumba class starting there on Monday night.’
‘Ah yes, I’ve seen posters around the village for that. You should go along. It’s important that we see what kind of stuff currently happens there and how well-attended it is. It’s very fortuitous that there’s an opportunity for one of us to do so before the AGM.’
‘I can’t go.’
‘Why not?’
‘I told you. I’m going to London on Monday. To hand in the corrections to my PhD.’
‘Oh, no. That’s a shame.’
‘You could go.’
‘What?’
‘You could go to Zumba.’
‘I can’t. It’s a ladies thing.’
‘No, it isn’t. It’s a health and fitness thing. You’ll be good at it.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure that it’ll be my thing.’
‘Right. And what is your thing?’
This was an unfair question from Fran. In life, one needs only a list of things that aren’t your thing – like ironing, queuing in airport security or Prime Minister’s Question Time. Not a list of things that are. Fran should know that.
‘It’s dance,’ said Fran. ‘You like dancing. You’ll be good at it.’
***
So it was, that in the interests of research, it fell upon me to go to the Monday-night Zumba class. By this time I’d made enough enquiries to know that I would be attending a kind of fitness/dance class that drew on Latin-American rhythms. A glance at Wikipedia had informed me that Zumba was created by Alberto ‘Beto’ Perez in Colombia during the 1990s. I guess when he’d first made it all up he figured it was only a question of time before it made it to a small village hall in Devon. He would no doubt be delighted to know that the great Tony Hawks was now going to give it a go.
I wasn’t overly nervous. I’d done aerobics classes in the past and I’d been skilful enough to learn some of the moves. In my first aerobics class, when I had been outnumbered ten to one by women (this is not compulsory, but seems to be the standard ratio), I had been completely thrown off-guard when the instructor bellowed ‘Grapevine!’ and everyone in the class set off on a kind of wiggly shimmy to the left or right. (How they knew which way to go still remains a mystery.)
Initially, my attempts at ‘grapevining’ had been, at best, embarrassing and, at worst, dangerous. Setting off in the wrong direction with flailing limbs causes painful collisions and does not endear you to other Lycra-clad participants, who are already deeply suspicious of you because of your slightly grubby tracksuit bottoms. Wishing to avert future humiliation, I’d practised the ‘grapevine’ at home and, though I say so myself, I’d become pretty adept at it, only letting myself down occasionally in classes when I launched into it in the wrong direction.
The village hall interior, like its exterior, was unremarkable. Exactly what you’d expect from such an edifice. Wooden floorboards, large windows, a rather unattractive low suspended ceiling, and a kitchen at the far end, the other side of a serving hatch. I’d arrived at the village hall at 7.25 p.m. for the 7.30 p.m. start, well kitted out in a tracksuit (not slightly grubby anymore, due to just another one of Fran’s many positive influences in my life) and with a towel and bottle of water. This impressive display of preparedness may have given a false impression of competence to those waiting inside the hall, who were, of course, all women. The recognised ten to one ratio had been respected. Ten women of different shapes, sizes and ages were milling around, limbering up or chatting, as a super-fit-looking instructor fiddled with a ghetto blaster. I felt a flutter of nerves, but reassured myself.
‘I’ll be all right,’ I said to myself. ‘I can grapevine.’
Besides, I thought, at least it’s a new class, so we’re all in this together. There would be a fair chance that most of the others would be as much in the dark as me when it came to the finer points of ‘Zumbaring’, or however they liked to describe it.
I made a base camp in the corner of the hall, putting my accessories on a windowsill, and I began gentle limbering movements. Then I took a deep breath and made the bold step of striding across the room to announce myself to the instructor – the presence of a man in proceedings seeming to create something of an edge to the atmosphere. Or was that me being paranoid? Or vain even?
‘Hello, I’m Tony!’ I said, as I arrived in front of the teacher, like a small child pushed forward by an overzealous parent at an audition for a show. ‘I’m here to represent the male sex.’
It seemed like a good idea to open with a gentle bit of humour, but as soon as I’d said it, I realised that it sounded naff.
‘Hi, Tony, I’m Sandra,’ replied our tutor, ‘have you done Zumba before?’
‘No.’
‘Are you reasonably fit?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘Great. Well, it may take you a while to find out what’s going on, as we’ve been doing this for twelve weeks down at the neighbouring village hall.’
A cold shiver.
‘What?’
‘We’ve lost the use of that village hall – which is why we’ve moved up here. The others know the moves pretty well, so you may be a little at sea for a while.’
Shit. This wasn’t good. Not good at all.
‘Maybe find a place at the back, so you can follow what’s going on.’
And with those words, she clapped her hands and summoned everyone into starting positions with a hugely enthusiastic:
‘OK, girls. Let’s go!’
Normally
I don’t respond to such a call, but I recognised my place as an ‘honorary girl’ and carefully positioned myself in the extreme back right-hand corner of the hall, which seemed to be the most private place I could find, short of being in the storage cupboard.
The first song began, unrecognisable, but driven by a strong, pulsating Latin rhythm. Sandra counted to four and then suddenly everyone was off. Instructions were barked and the ‘girls’ duly followed. They clearly knew what they were doing. For them, it was like practising a dance routine that they’d been rehearsing for months. For me, the experience was different. It was like being thrown into a room where . . . well, where ladies were practising a dance routine that they’d been rehearsing for months.
I had no clue what was coming, or what to do once it had arrived. The moves seemed to run for eight bars of the music. This gave me enough time to sort out my direction and begin to make some pathetic attempt at the move that was being done by everyone else in the room. However, just at the very moment when I’d begun to establish what was required for that move, Sandra would bark instructions for another. The process would then repeat. There appeared to be about five moves for the entire song, and each time they repeated, I was able to make a better fist of getting them right. But then the track finished. Sandra looked at me and smiled.
‘Well done, Tony, not bad!’
For the second track, I made going in the right direction my main priority. The session for the lady to my left was being made more testing by the need to keep an eye out for the idiot to her right. Suddenly a huge sweeping move to the right was required, bringing me into direct contact with the outer wall of the village hall – which I could now confirm, was very well-constructed. Worse still, it meant that all the ladies in the room were facing me, and they could see that I was not even beginning to do any of the things that were required of me. Now in the spotlight, I just guessed at what I should be doing, and flailed some arms and legs in a kind of medley of every move that had happened thus far. At the end of the song, and with the patience of a careworker, Sandra smiled at me encouragingly.
I was now getting very hot. I drank some water and decided that the tracksuit bottoms would have to come off. I’d booked for the full hour of torture, so I might as well be comfortably attired. Besides, I thought I looked pretty good in shorts.
As the next song raged into life, something alarming began to happen. It became clear that the elastic had gone in the waistband of the shorts and that what had been holding them up before had been the elastic in the waist of the tracksuit bottoms. Any jolty movement from me now meant that my shorts started to fall down. I clutched at them with one hand, but Sandra was constantly calling for us to wave our arms about. I tried, but to let go for too long was risky. Shorts around the ankles, in front of a group of women at my first village hall event, was unthinkable. Better to fail even more hopelessly than before with each move, than to tarnish my reputation for years to come.
At the end of that track, I rushed quickly over to my base camp and put my tracksuit bottoms back on. Sandra glanced in my direction, perhaps thinking that I was leaving.
‘You all right, Tony?’
‘Yes. Yes, thanks. Just putting my tracksuit bottoms back on.’
The same ones that she, and everyone else, had observed me removing three minutes earlier.
‘You’re doing well,’ she said.
Sandra was a fine dancer, a good teacher, but an absolutely fabulous bullshitter. If I was doing well, then just how low could her expectations of me have been at the start? I was only doing well because I hadn’t killed anyone or napalmed the building.
The same pattern continued throughout the next forty minutes – that of learning a move, only to have it immediately switched to another. I watched the clock with the same foolish devotion of the bored factory worker. Time, of course, passes more slowly when monitored. The agony is prolonged.
What was most upsetting was that Sandra seemed to be utilising every dance movement known to man except the grapevine. My chance to shine was being denied. It wasn’t until the very last song, when the clock was reading 8.26, that Sandra suddenly called ‘Grapevine!’
Brilliant! At last! I thought, and I leapt into that move like a shot – with all the gusto and all the enthusiasm I could muster. I knew what I was doing at last.
There was a problem though.
I went left and the rest of the class went right.
‘Sorry!’ I blurted out, as I kicked the lady next to me quite hard on the shin.
She looked away, either lost in her dancing, or in her fury. I had dealt her quite a blow, but she did not even break stride. Adrenalin was carrying her through.
‘Well done, ladies! A great class!’ announced Sandra at 8.30 on the dot.
The gaggle of ladies applauded. The solitary man hung his head. He tried to seek out the lady he had kicked to make another attempt at an apology, but she was in a huddle with another group, no doubt bad-mouthing him.
The man went home alone, rubbing an elbow that was now hurting, following an earlier collision with a solid wall. He had a bath. He went to bed.
He wouldn’t be doing Zumba again in a hurry.
***
He was back at the village hall again all too soon, though, twenty-four hours not being enough time for the scars to have healed. The Zumba elbow was still sore too.
I had never been to an AGM before. I’d happily, and somewhat irresponsibly, lived in a world where the running of things was done by others. My life had been one in which I’d been happy to complain and criticise where necessary, whilst ensuring that I never became involved in any of the processes that had led to the decisions or policies that I disliked. That was about to change.
Fran and I got to the hall at 7.02 p.m. About twenty-five people were already seated in a semicircle in front of the table that presumably contained the vestiges of the outgoing committee. Village life seemed to be well-represented, from the grubby to the well-turned-out, but there were no children. Or young people. Surprisingly, they had chosen other activities ahead of sitting in a hall on a summer’s evening, listening to their elders discussing how it might best be managed. Even the youngsters who might have been interested could have a more stimulating experience playing the computer game ‘AGM’, in which the chairman can be zapped if he gets someone’s name wrong, or fails to point out the fire exits.
Heads turned to see who it was that had turned up two minutes late. We lived less than five minutes’ walk away, so not being on time wasn’t impressive, but both Fran and I are good at faffing.1
The meeting kicked off the moment our arses touched the hard chairs, almost as if this was the cue for the grey-haired outgoing chairman to begin. What followed was not top-quality entertainment. He was only a few minutes into his speech, outlining the improvements that the previous committee had made to the hall, when my mind started to wander. His voice became a monotone backdrop to myriad thoughts about sea walks, jobs that needed doing around the house and whether the oil needed changing on the car.
I tuned in occasionally, just for long enough to learn that a three-phase electrical renovation was recommended, but most of the time I surrendered to my mind’s indiscriminate meanderings. It was like being back at school. No engagement. Oh, how I remembered that feeling that one should sit down, shut up, and listen. There was nothing to draw you in, or prick your interest, and so the creative mind used to rebel and play truant.
Are you listening, boy?
The honest answer was no.
No, I’m not listening, because nobody asked me if I wanted to do this, and actually I don’t – because I find it dull.
But that was an invitation to punishment. So we lied.
Yes, sir.
And upon this system we build the fabric of our society.
Half an hour into the meeting, there was a rare moment of audience participation. Those present were asked to vote on whether the village hall should adopt the new constitution that had a
pparently just been explained to us. (I was on horseback in the Andes at the time.) It must have made good sense since everyone in the room, including Fran, raised their hands. I raised mine too, simultaneously exercising and, given my ignorance of what I was now approving, abusing my democratic rights.
With the new constitution in place, two of the three men behind the table then announced that they were resigning and that a new committee was needed. The other man, the treasurer, said that he was prepared to stay on for one year. No real explanation was offered as to how and why this situation existed, but all we’d been told was that there had been a clash of personalities and that this was why fresh faces were needed for the committee. Untainted by the past. The moment that Fran and I had come to seize had arrived. The now ex-chairman asked if there were any people present who were prepared to form the new committee. I raised my hand.
For a moment, Fran seemed to hesitate. Was she going to betray me? To my relief, I saw her slowly put her hand up too. Those present turned and looked. A buzz of conversation echoed around the hall. I looked around to see that there were three other volunteers, two grey-haired ladies in their sixties and Brenda – the former owner of our house. The ex-chairman counted the hands and asked for each of the volunteers to be seconded. Seconders were not hard to find, and I got the feeling that there was immense relief that anyone was prepared to take on this task. It was announced that this was enough for a new committee to be formed and the AGM, wonderful spectacle that it had been, came to a close.
History had been made.
There was a part of me that kept thinking – could it really be done like this? You could simply put up your hand and that was enough to get you on a committee? Were there no votes? No declarations of policy? Was this how rural Britain operated?
The new committee were ushered to the front table, whilst everyone else slowly dispersed from the hall, chattering excitedly. Perhaps it wasn’t quite our village’s equivalent of a new pope being elected, but it was still reason for a good old gossip. To the relative noisy soundtrack of an emptying hall, the new committee (all of retirement age but for me and Fran) were introduced to each other and then asked to sign a document that was witnessed by the outgoing chairman. We were then instructed to have our first meeting, and we were invited to sit down around a table.
