Читать книгу Still Got It, Never Lost It!: The Hilarious Autobiography from the Star of TV’s Pineapple Dance Studios and Dancing on Ice - Louie Spence - Страница 6

I don’t think my sisters really wanted to go dancing. It was just that Mum wanted to get rid of all three of us on a Saturday morning so she could go shopping along with the rest of the town. Doreen Cliff School of Dance, at the Braintree Institute, must have been making a bloody fortune – when I say every kid in the town was there, they really were. Well, the girls and me.

Before I went to Doreen Cliff’s School I was already doing my own thing. I was always loose – I could always do the splits, not technically correct, but my legs were quite rubbery. I can remember as clear as day lying on my front on our shagpile in front of the TV, getting high on the Shake’n’Vac that the vacuum cleaner couldn’t quite reach.

I liked rocking back and forth on my front as I lay in front of the TV and before I knew it, my feet had gone over my head and I had one foot next to each ear. Mum freaked out – I think she thought I had snapped in half and you can imagine what must have been going through her mind. Penicillin wouldn’t fix this one! But I just rolled out and was as right as rain.

So, when I got to Doreen Cliff’s I enjoyed putting myself in a ball in acro class. For anyone who doesn’t know what that is, it’s a bit like contortion. Well, it was at Doreen Cliff’s School. She would bend you into any shape she wanted and of course she loved me. A boy with that facility! I was already grabbing attention at age five.

It didn’t take me long to get into the swing of things at Doreen Cliff’s – as soon as I got a pair of Lycra tights, that was it. I loved it and I couldn’t wait for Saturday mornings. I remember I would wake up before the bleach had hit the kitchen floor, with my bag packed and ready to go.

Now, the Braintree Institute isn’t really that big. I only went back there a few months ago as Doreen was retiring after 45 years, but I remember when I was five how grand it all seemed. The main hall had a stage with big red curtains, which was only for end-of-year shows.

Our classes were held upstairs, in dusty, cold rooms with grey lino floors. Remembering the smell of the cold concrete walls and the plastic lino still makes me smile now. As soon as I walked through the doors I felt happy and excited, and I couldn’t wait to continue what we had been doing the week before.

I loved the work we did and I was eager to progress. Early on I learned that if you practise, you can improve, and I did – I got better, week after week. I was stimulated and felt that it was for a reason, even though I didn’t know what the reason was. I didn’t have to try, it just happened. I could perform any task I was set and I had no idea at the time that this would be my career.

In contrast, I remember I hated my first day at primary school and every day after, along with anything academic. I know some people look back and say schooldays were the best days of their lives, but the academic side used to make me physically sick.

I remember one day when I was in junior school, aged about nine, I jumped over the school fence and went home. When Mum saw me, she asked me what I was doing at home. I burst into tears and told her that I didn’t like school and I didn’t want to go back. She calmly gave me a lolly and listened to me, before sending me back to school: she made the situation less traumatic than it might have felt because she didn’t make a big hoo-ha about it.

Talking about sweets, our mum bought us sweets every evening, which she would then leave behind the kettle. How random is that? Each night we would come home and check behind the kettle to see what sweets we had, and she never forgot, even though, like Dad, she was holding down two jobs. As you get older you can forget how amazing your parents were. Anyway, back to me and my dancing.

Don’t get me wrong, I used to like walking to school with my friends and coming home, as well as classes in country dancing and gymnastics in between, but that was about it.

All my school reports said, ‘Louie could do better if he concentrated, if he tried harder.’

I suppose I could have tried harder, but how could I concentrate? I sat in class behind Trudie Francesconi, who had long, shiny dark brown hair which reached her waist. I used to imagine what it must be like to have hair that long. When she moved her head, her hair would follow a couple of beats later, and you could see your reflection in it when the sun shone on her hair.

During playtime while the boys were kicking balls around, you could find me brushing Trudie’s hair in the playground. When I was finished, I would crown it with a daisy chain, which I had skilfully put together. I was known for my rose petal perfume and my daisy chains at John Ray Infants School.

None of the kids thought anything of it. I was just Louie, and even at that very young age, I had a big personality that could make people laugh. I think this prevented others from categorising me as anything but Louie. I had such confidence and I was never apologetic for who I was. My behaviour did not seem wrong and none of my friends seemed to think it was.

I often crowned myself Fairy Princess and sprayed myself with my home-made rosewater perfume. And I was very content with my daisy crowns until Nadine Leicester was crowned Braintree Carnival Princess. She brought her sparkling diamante tiara to school and I was dumbstruck: I had never seen anything so beautiful in my life. Even Trudie’s shiny hair could not compete with the sparkle and shine of this real princess’s tiara.

I had to have it. Nadine was not someone I played with much, even though she lived around the corner from me, next to Gary Smith – who I played with more often. But Nadine was soon to become one of my best friends. I started by brushing her hair at playtime. It was not like brushing Trudie’s hair: Trudie had hair like satin and it was straight as spaghetti, but Nadine’s hair had a slight curl. Her hair was also slightly coarse, with a few split ends. I had learned what split ends were from my sisters.

Nadine was not going to give up her crown easily. It took a lot of brushing and plaiting, and giving up my lunchbox treats of Milky Ways, Curly Wurlies, Blue Riband, and I lost count of how many packets of pickled onion Monster Munch.

But it was so worth it. The day had arrived! I went around to Nadine’s house after school and there it was, in her bedroom on top of her chest of drawers. I was transfixed and before I knew it, I had it in my hands and placed it on my head. I was a princess, if only for a few seconds.

Nadine was having none of it. She snatched it from me and said she was going to tell her mum. In one sense, I was glad it was over: it meant no more giving away my lunch-box treats. If only I knew then what I know now – I did not need her tiara to be a princess! Look at me now, I’m the queen of Braintree!

I found school lessons uninspiring and boring compared to classes with Doreen Cliff, which filled me with so much joy. Where her classes seemed to finish too quickly, school seemed never-ending. I don’t know how I learned to read and write – I never paid any attention in class. It must have been a purely unconscious process. I suppose it was lucky I wasn’t conscious. Who knows, I might have studied and ended up running a corporation or country somewhere, in Lycra, no doubt. No, let’s keep it real: that would never have happened.

But I lie – I do remember learning something at school, with Mrs Pye, when I was about six. I learned how to tie my shoelaces in a double bow; we practised on a big cardboard boot.

My attitude to school did not change throughout junior school and continued into my first year of senior school, when I decided to try and get into Italia Conti in London, with the help of Doreen Cliff.

I REMEMBER the first show we ever did at Doreen Cliff’s School, on the big stage with the red curtains. I played a chicken and a hula boy, and the girls were all hula girls. We rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed – Doreen was very tough, even with five-year-olds. She made sure everything was perfect for the big night. And everything was perfect – my parents had even bought me a little gold signet ring in celebration. But could they get me on that stage? Neither for love nor a gold signet ring! My chicken was not clucking that evening.

I had a fear I had not experienced before; not even lonely nights in my MFI bed could compare to this. I couldn’t breathe, which might have been because the elastic around the chicken head was asphyxiating me. Whatever the reason, I did not want to go on stage. That was my only experience of stage fright. Lucky it happened then and not at a paying gig, but I didn’t get the gold signet ring. I suspect they had only bought it to keep me out of Mum’s jewellery box, with its beads and clip-ons.

I was worried after this no-show that Mum wouldn’t allow me to go back to dance classes at Doreen Cliff’s. I don’t know what I would have done without those classes, because I felt complete when I was dancing – a bit of ballet, tap and disco. I did love a bit of disco – all that thrusting, all that Lycra. Of course she let me go back – she wanted to keep her Saturday mornings free.

I started to take my exams at Doreen Cliff’s in acro, disco, tap and modern. I always received Honours for acro and disco, and I loved the exams because it meant I would have to get new costumes. One of my favourite costumes was an electric blue all-in-one Lycra catsuit with stirrups. Now, you could dress this up or down, depending on how you wanted it. Back in the disco days, elasticated sequins were all the rage, especially on armbands, anklebands, belts and head-bands. You could also have tinsel tassels, which is a mouthful for me, but it looked amazing when doing a disco spin. I loved sewing the tassels – give me a needle, thread and sequins and I’m in my element.

I remember coming home once to find Dad in my Lycra all-in-one, prancing around in front of the family, which they thought was very funny, but I was pissed off. I did not find it funny, at the age of seven, having spent ages sewing on my tinsel tassels, that he might stretch my all-in-one and ruin it. It was for seven-to nine-year-olds, not for 30! It was my life!

Dancing had been my life since the age of five and I lived for Saturday mornings, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays after school, when I would go to dance classes. My parents never had to wake me up or push me to attend dance classes – it was always my choice. I was never late for class and they never interfered or prevented me from attending.

EVEN THOUGH I loved going to Doreen Cliff School of Dance at the Braintree Institute, I knew that there wasn’t enough for me to learn – I seemed to master whatever I was taught very quickly and if I didn’t, I would work on it night and day until the next lesson. That was when my friend Yvonne O’Grady who lived at number five, by the park with the swings and roundabouts, told me about a new dance school that she was attending in a nearby village.

Yvonne and I use to attend trampolining classes after school when I wasn’t dancing and I became North Essex champion. Sometimes we used to practise trampoline moves from a trampette on to crash mats and move on to the trampoline when we had perfected the move. Well, I thought I had perfected it, until I did the double-front summersault into a front drop and I didn’t open up, but over-rotated, staying in a nice tight tuck.

Whenever I concentrated, I always had my tongue hanging out. Not really a good thing to do when you’re on a trampoline doing a double-front tuck. When I landed, without opening out, my knee hit my chin, pushing my teeth through my tongue. Being the neurotic drama queen that I am, obviously I thought I was going to bleed to death, but I ended up with only four stitches and an even worse lisp than I started out with. Thank God I didn’t get myself a job selling sausages, or I’d have been up shit creek without a paddle! Mind you, as I’d always had a lisp, I don’t think anyone noticed much difference.

There was only one problem: apparently there was an age requirement for Dadina’s school. It was 13, unlucky for some and very unlucky for me, considering I was only 11 going on 12. But by hook and by crook, by high kick and splits, I was determined to attend Dadina’s School of Dance.

Yvonne had already been attending classes for about five weeks and she used to show me some of the dance moves that Dadina had taught her. Well, you could have blown me down with a feather when she showed me what she had been learning at Dadina’s school! It was like what they did in Fame. How was I going to get there? How was I going to convince Dadina that even though I wasn’t old enough, I should attend her school?

Dadina had started a dancing school in Little Bardfield, which was a village about six miles from Braintree, and I knew that I had to go. I didn’t know Dadina, but I had seen her at school; she hadn’t been there long but you really couldn’t miss her. She was unlike all the other girls at school – she had an aura about her. Whenever I saw her leaving school to get into her mum’s Rolls-Royce, it was like time slowed down. She was tall, Anglo-Asian, around 15/16 with thick, jet-black hair that bounced in rhythm when she walked. And what a walk she had – straight back, head held high, working Notley High School’s drive like a Paris catwalk.

I asked Yvonne to put in a good word for me, which, being the lovely person she was, she did. I say lovely person, I told her otherwise I would tell all the boys in school that she wore brown towelling knickers with yellow piping, which came away from the seams. (One thing girls had worked out at an early age was when a boy was gay and they could take their leotards off without them trying to look at their budding boobs. You know the stage I mean, girls, when your tits look like a little witch’s hat.) Yvonne, not wanting her towelling knickers exposed to the whole of Notley High School, agreed that she would have a word with Dadina.

I felt like I was being summoned! Dadina had agreed to meet me – the beautiful, goddess-like figure that I looked at in awe – obviously not a sexual awe but I can’t help but love a beautiful woman, and Dadina certainly was this.

So, Yvonne told me during a lunch break to meet her and Dadina on the wall outside the Rose & Crown at 12.30, next door to the Londis where I used to nick Special Brew for Nanny Downer. Of course I said yes, even though there was a dilemma as I wasn’t on the going-home-for-lunch list. I couldn’t work out how I was going to get out of the school gates, past the dinner ladies. Believe me, they could be like the bleeding Gestapo.

Well, there was a God, because lucky for me on that day, the dinner ladies must have been having a meeting. Goody Two Shoes Phillipa Morris was on her own on tick-out duties; her farts probably didn’t even smell, she thought she was that perfect, but she can’t have been that perfect because I managed to shimmy my way past her while she was busy being the perfect prefect.

I was bang on time for my meeting outside the Rose & Crown, but to my utter disappointment there was no sign of Yvonne or Dadina. I could feel my heart sinking; first, there was the real chance that Mum was doing her shopping in the Londis next door. Secondly, I was worried about being caught outside the school when I wasn’t allowed out and thirdly, my dreams of dancing like Leroy were slipping away.

But, hold on – was that the sound of cork shoes on concrete? It certainly was, and there she was – 5, 6, 7, 8, and walk, 6, 7, 8. There she was, with her perfect rhythm.

I was frightened, but excited and my stomach was turning as I watched her approach. What if she said I couldn’t go to her classes? Perhaps I’d break down in tears – maybe that would work? It was an option that I was holding in the back of my mind if things didn’t turn out well.

I think you get what I mean when I say, ‘Dadina didn’t look like any other girl at school.’ Hello!

Before I knew it, there she was in front of me. She put her hand out and shook mine, and said, ‘Hello, Louie, my name is Dadina. Very nice to meet you.’

She was so grown up, even though she wasn’t quite 16.

‘Yvonne tells me you would like to come to my dancing school.’

Once I had caught my breath and tried to be as composed as an 11 going on 12-year-old could be – shaking on the inside, strong on the outside – I replied, ‘Yes, I would, please, thank you very much.’

‘How old are you?’

I knew that the admission age was 13, so I said 13, but Yvonne, thinking she was being really cool because she was Dadina’s new BF, said, ‘No, you’re not! You’re only 11.’

Don’t ask me where it came from, but I just shouted out, ‘Well, at least I don’t have brown towelling knickers, which are falling apart, and tits like a witch’s hat!’

This made Dadina laugh out loud, and she said, ‘I’ll make an exception this time. You can come on Saturday and let me see how you dance.’

Well, if you can imagine me at 11 going on 12, five foot nothing, screaming at the top of my voice, ‘Yes, yes, yes, I’ll be there!’ All those s’s, and with my balls not having dropped, my voice was so high-pitched, I almost cracked the windows of the Rose & Crown.

WITH A hop, skip, a jump and a turn, a high kick, a cartwheel and a back flip, I made my way back to school. And that’s not an exaggeration – I thought I would give Dadina a little preview of what I could do. I was determined there was no way she was going to turn me down. And she didn’t.

That Saturday morning when I arrived at Little Bardfield Hall, a 26-bedroom mansion with a massive barn where Dadina held her dance lessons, I was a triumph. I was wearing my best Lycra all-in-one. It was a deep maroon, long-sleeved, with stirrup foot, a scalloped neck and low-cut back.

If you think that sounds a bit feminine, you are right: it was a girls’ all-in-one, but they didn’t have them for boys. They didn’t even sell them, come to that, they had to order them in. All they sold was aerobics gear. When people say they’ve done aerobics and it’s just like dancing, it’s not at all, and neither is the attire. But the lady in the shop wouldn’t order just one boys’ unitard as she wouldn’t get her discount and I was the only boy in the town interested in them. So I made do with a girls’ one, which was nothing new to me, I was always in my sisters’ old clothes.

I never had a problem carrying something off with a feminine touch and I still don’t. So, back to me being a triumph. We started off with a nice slow warm-up and this wasn’t disco or ISTD, which is a dance syllabus: this was called modern jazz, which is what they did in the Fame class on TV. I was feeling dizzy, I was that excited – I couldn’t believe there was someone other than Lydia Grant (the Fame dance teacher played by Debbie Allen) who knew how to teach this style.

Once again, unlike my academic skills, I found it so easy. I didn’t have to think about it; whatever she taught, I followed with ease and I knew she could see it: I could see the smile on her face. I didn’t see any smiles on Donna Forrester or Yvonne O’Grady’s faces. They were her star pupils, until I arrived, and they were not happy. But hey, this was my destiny and no-one was going to mess with it – and they didn’t.

At the end of the class, Dadina sat down with us and told everyone how well I did, and how lovely it was to see someone with so much potential, especially a boy. She then told me that she would be happy to teach me and so that was the start of a wonderful friendship and a great learning experience.

FOR THE next year, as well as attending Doreen Cliff’s classes during the week, I would attend classes with Dadina every Friday night after school and stay overnight. At first this frightened the life out of me: the house was so big and so old, I was far too scared to sleep in a room on my own, as was Yvonne, who also used to come over on a Friday night so we would sleep in Dadina’s bedroom. Well, I say bedroom – you could have fitted my box-room in it a hundred times. It was massive, with a walk-in wardrobe filled to the brim, may I add. The room was divided in two sections by wooden beams that creaked in the night.

Yvonne and Dadina slept at one end of the room and I slept at the other end on a massive cushion on the floor, under a lot of blankets. The weight of the blankets on me made me feel less scared, don’t ask me why. There was no way I’d be going for a wee in the middle of the night! The bathroom was a mile down the corridor and I would have pissed my pants before I got there, I was that frightened.

Saturdays became the highlight of my life. I know that may sound a bit dramatic, but it’s true. Dadina had been taught by various teachers in London and her teaching style was very strict and disciplined. It was not like Doreen Cliff’s, where there were a large number of students of varying levels and abilities. Dadina expected us to be as disciplined as she was and she wanted to see progress in us. If your développé started at 45 degrees, the next week she would want it higher, and even higher the week after that, until it was up around your ears. If you did one turn, she wanted two; if you did two, she wanted three, and so on and so on.

But the most wonderful thing for me was the technical ability that I was developing under her teaching; it gave me the freedom to express myself through the music when I danced. This was a new and wonderful experience that has never left me.

In Dadina’s barn I experienced what it was to dance to a piece of music and feel truly at one with it. It was, and is for me, the most wonderful feeling as a dancer: melting together with the music. It is like time stands still and the world has stopped moving; it’s a magical feeling and one that I feel blessed to have.