square dancing

Square dancing

Miss W. #NaGenWriMo 2022 , , ,

When my brother and I were young children, we were often bundled up and taken to a hall in Lindisfarne where my parents would be square dancing with their friends. They had been square dancing for many years. In fact, that is where they met in 1952. I have written a post about their square dancing time.

Somehow square dancing rubbed off on me. I joined the Southern Eights Club in Hobart with Barry Chandler as the caller. I found the moves easy to remember but I also enjoyed round dancing, which happened between the brackets of square dancing.

Round dancing is like ballroom dancing but instead of learning the whole dance, you have a caller on stage calling out the moves. So the dance might be a two step but the dancers wont know in which order the moves will be called. This makes it more interesting and the dancers have to listen carefully when the cues are called out.

There were enough people from square dance clubs around Hobart interested in round dancing that we opened a club specifically for round dancing called Roulette Rounds. I was one of two dancers cueing, and eventually I was the only cuer of the club.

I loved calling round dancing and even took part in some Australian Square Dancing Conventions representing Tasmania as a round dance cuer. Whenever I travelled around Tasmania I would take some round dance records with me, in case I was asked to call a few dances at the square dance clubs I visited.

Whenever there was an Australian Convention held here in Hobart, I would be on the committee whilst I was an active dancer.

Sue cueing a round dance

Readers: Do you enjoy dancing? What type of dancing in particular?

UPDATE from dad:

I just read your square dancing record, did you know that the Bar 8 square dancers danced in Fitzgeralds main window in Collins St, Peter Smith was the caller. Phyl and I ran dances with the Hobart Walking Club  for some years, old time, square, modern, Greek.

Let’s dance! Square dance that is!

Miss W. England , , , , ,

With my parents now heading to their late eighties, I have been looking back at some of the influences of their lives together. This photo represents one of those – square dancing.

Mum and dad met while square dancing.

Before they were married, mum represented Tasmania in 1951 at the Australian championships. She was one of the couples from Swan St Club.

 

The average age of the winners was 16 – mum was actually 17 at this time. Mum’s father, Henry Lewis England, nearly fell over the balcony at City Hall when mum and her team won the Women’s Weekly competition in Tasmania.

This image is of them being congratulated on their win. Click on the image to find out more about the second and third prize winners in Tasmania – A National Fitness Council team and the Elizabeth Street School teachers team.

 

The Tasmanian team enjoyed time out at the Sydney Botanic Gardens while at the championships. Joe Lewis, a caller from America, was the judge and he gave points for showmanship, spirit of happiness, timing, precision, gracefulness and impromptu calls. Click on the image to read about the Square Dance contest in Sydney. The Tasmanian team came second.

 

Now back to mum and dad. They met at St Peters Hall in Harrington Street Hobart on 12 September 1952 when dad was 20 and mum 18. A group of dancers had gone to Collinsvale to do an exhibition square dance on that date but mum and dad were at the hall.  Dad was part of the Bar 8 square dance group hence the number eight with the line through it on his shirt above.

According to mum, when I was about 6 months old, they took me to a square dance at Claremont Hall and the other dancers were amazed that I slept through the music and other noises. I can remember as a small child being taken to square dancing evenings at a hall in Lindisfarne and enjoying the music. This also influenced my life as I too joined a square dancing club in Hobart but also learnt how to teach Round Dancing – a variation of ballroom dancing done in between square dance brackets.

Sources:

Image 1 – personal collection

Image 2 – Mercury Hobart 18 Jul 1951

Readers: Did you or your parents ever take part in square dancing? Where and when? Or maybe ballroom dancing was more their style. Where and when?