Last Tango in Hanworth

Ah yes.... the last Tango with Trevor. It was sad that it all had to end, but 14 is a special age, when you begin to notice the opposite sex and realise that your ballroom dancing hero is really just a sad, middle-aged man, with no life outside the Hanworth dance hall. We had some good times though, spinning round the dance floor in dresses hand-made by my Mum (me that is, not Trevor) and those gala nights, when we were presented with our medals in front of the applauding crowds. Of course, it might have been so different if the partner Trevor had offered for my professional future had been just a tad more attractive to my boy-hungry eyes. In hindsight, he wasn't actually bad looking, but oh so horridly clean-cut! He was the sort of polite boy my Mum would have loved, but compared with the wild hippies & dangerous skinheads that I was starting to consort with, there was no way I could have spent the next 5 years foxtrotting my way to ballroom stardom with him. The Night Clubs beckoned, with their heady scents of Brut, Youth Dew & Special Brew.... how could I resist?

The last I saw of Trevor was 4 years later. I was on my knees in the kitchen, washing the floor for my Mum, when a familiar face appeared at the open back door. He was shorter & balder than the debonair dancer I remembered, who had tutored me through countless, dizzying Waltzes, frenetic Quicksteps, hip-swaying Cha-Chas & tempestuousTangos. I looked up, embarrassed at the situation in which he found me. I laughed nervously and said "I'm washing the floor for my Mum". "She shouldn't make you do that" he said. He seemed taken aback; I can't think why. He was calling to say he was starting a new dancing school in the Social Club hall round the corner & he wanted me to give dancing demonstrations with him. I said I would go, and I did, but ended up wishing I hadn't. Things had changed. My nights of dancing at Kew Boathouse & The Castle had made me stiff - that's what reggae does to you! In 4 years, the closest I had been to ballroom dancing was one night at The Boathouse, when Lincoln, the black guy I worked with at the Hounslow Grill, said he'd show me how to dance "properly". His idea of dancing properly was two bodies pressed tightly together, swaying & grinding in unison, until the music became quite secondary to what you were trying to achieve! Dear Lincoln, I wonder where he is now.