Country Dancing at Junior Schools


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Just read in another post, a mention was made to country dancing, I went to St Teresa's RC Juniors in Aspley & recall being in the Country Dancing Team, we toured around other schools in Nottingham, can anyone else recall any dances names, we did Polka's & others

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Always loved dancing. Still do and still fancy myself as a 'mover'. Pity no one else sees it that way   My first experience with dancing was when at the Windley Jr school. We would be taken

I remember looking forward to dancing lessons precisely because we were deliberately placed in boy, girl, boy, girl order: for ease of partnering but possibly also to stop the boys being silly, which

Me who mentioned it.... And I'm not Catholic or Irish !!! :cool:

It was presumably something to do with "folk roots" and that kind of traditional stuff - a close relative of morris dancing. I don't remember any specific names because I disliked it and was embarrassed by it so much that it has all disappeared from my memory.

I just remember every Tuesday afternoon from 1.30 till 2.00.

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Don't remember country dancing at our junior school , can only remember choirs and recorder groups .

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We used to do barn dances, the gay gordons and one or two others that I don't remember the names of, though not sure which school this was at, either Spring St Juniors or Annie Holgate Grammar in the first year. Also used to have a May Day at Beardall St Infants, and did lots of dancing round the maypole.

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David W #6

Hi David, Did you go to All Hallows Infants at Gedling, that is where i learnt the country dancing. Perhaps it was just the girls who did it and others had choir and played recorder! Once my voice was heard i wouldn't have been allowed in the choir anyway! We also danced round the Maypole, i'm not positive but we probably did that at the garden fete as well. Did you go to the Garden Fete in the Rectory Grounds? There was a little horse or Donkey on the further field for us to have rides on. Wish i had some photo's but sadly i don't have any at all.

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Oowah Lizzie,

I'm all confused now, Perhaps we can have a little dance all of us and see who remembers the steps, Chris reckons he did it for one year at his big school when he was 13/14yrs, he hated it. Lol. I only remember it at infant school. :P

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Carni , no I was at Westdale Lane juniors and before that , the infants in the "wooden huts" .

Only time I went in All Hallows church was Gedling Sec Mods , annual Christmas Service .

Only church garden parties I remember was at our local church , that was St James on Marshall Hill Drive .

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Sorry David,

I do get confused these days, for some reason i thought you went to All Hallows, I have got the schools mixed up, never mind i can't remember the boys dancing anyway. You had a narrow escape there. Lol

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the children at dunkirk school in the 80s revived and preformed localy a country dance called the lenton skippityalong with the teacher whoes name i have forgoten there is an artical in one of the lenton time about it and i remember it being preformed in several places when i lived in lenton the teacher also went to other local schools to teach it to the children there in the hope that this old country dance was never forgotten.

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carni i went to several church fetes at gedling when i was in the red cross on first aid duty remember the donkey rides in the little paddock next door we always had a tent put up forus by the local scoutswe used to take a camp bed and first aid kits with us the vicar used to provide us with water and bowls. red cross commandat was mrs harrison she and her son tony lived next door to the grey goose in the little bungalow before you got to the cemetary gates used to spend quite a lot of time at that bungalow too.

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strip the willow. Remember it well. I can't recall where I was when first I did that dance but I can remember very clearly doing it at ceilidh's way up in the mountains and the west coast of Scotland where I did some work many years ago. Quite a few beveys and "nips" followed by the dancing. All the ladies and a few of the younger men joining in while the old and the bold stood round the edges watching who was dancing with their wives or girlfriends.Later on in life when working in South Wales I came to know that , I think it was "Abergavenny" that the poet Dylan Thomas, called the sexual hub of the world because , come market day all the farmers would descend into town to set up the stalls in order to lay out their wares. Their wives would insist that daughters helped out but when all was set up the girls would gather in groups and circulate round the market site walking and talking while at the same time the young men, also in groups would circulate but in opposite directions to the girls again walking and talking but in reality eyeing up each other. Once I had heard this It always came to mind the village halls up in scotland where we drank and "stripped the willow" Lovely days they were.

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I remember for a short while we used to have a Barn Dance every term at Grammar School. We lads loved it as it gave us hot blooded lads chance to actually touch the girls.

I remember such dances as The Gay Gordon's, Strip the Willow, Dashing White Sergeant and St. Bernards Waltz. We also did things like American eightsome reels with one called (I think) Dip and Dive. It was fun and I would love to do some of that stuff again, but some of the moves were complicated. We just laughed it off when we messed up. I think the hardest were remembering to move along if it was a 'progressive' dance.

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:biggrin: I loved 'Country Dancing' when I was in the Junior Girls - trouble was we didn't get enough of it - at William Crane it seemed to be all about Reading, Writing and Arithmetic.

I recall dancing my little heart out when our Dance Teacher promised that the ten best dancers within four forms could perform at a Dance Display to take place on one of Nottingham's huge playing fields. I was over the moon to have been chosen. :biggrin:

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We used to have to do dancing when I was at Blue Bell Hill school in the 1959 - 61 period (for that matter we also did at the village school in Lincolnshire where I lived before that).

I can't really remember the names of the dances we did - was there one called the Circassian Circle? - but I know there were lots of reels, and whatever they were they usually involved linking arms with your partner and 'promenading' down between the lines of the others. We also did the waltz and the polka.

As I remember you always danced with the same partner - mine was named Helen - everyone was paired off! (This was at ages 9 to 11)

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#6 David, We did have country dancing at Westdale Juniors when I was there. I remember being forced into doing it. :(

The upside, though, was that I got to partner Karen, my 'crush' at the time. :)

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I went to St Augustine's Catholic Primary School on Woodborough Road from 1953-1959.

We used to be taken in a crocodile to some hall over a factory in a street off Cranmer Street.

Country Dancing was great fun! I loved it! It awoke an early interest in girls and led to rivalries between the lads for the attention of the girls.

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Rob ,

Must be my age , apart from a few pals , I barely remember anything about Westdale Junior apart from endless games of footy at playtime , always using a threadbare tennis ball .

Did find a report book the other day and it was signed by Mr Sumner the headmaster and Mrs Wedge.

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#20 Siddha

My wife was at St Augustine's, too, in 1964, and they were still using the same hall. It was in a factory on Alfred Street North. The building is still there today.

#21 David

Remember Mr Sumner well, although I didn't have to visit his office - well, not that many times! ;)

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  • 8 months later...

We definitely did country dancing at Walter Halls in the 1950s. I can remember doing some sort of display on the Forest. The girls had black gipsy skirts with coloured banding round the edge, white blouses and velvet boleros. Goodness knows how my mum found the money to pay for the gear, if she had to.

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We did country Dancing at Henry Whipple school,still got a photo circa'54, remember the names of all the others on the photo,and seeing as ive still to find anyone else on Nottstalgia from my old school i'll name them to see if that rings any bells,Beryl Hughes,Roy Burton,Marian Perry,Michael Lawrence,Valerie Biddulph,Geoffrey Jenner,Dolly Simms,Vernon Mountford,Valerie Keetch.

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  • Cliff Ton changed the title to Country Dancing at Junior Schools

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