April 10th – Well, where to start? Funny how simple things,
notes in diaries, notes in someone else’s diaries (?) slips of paper found at
the bottom of a bag or in an old coat pocket can sometimes really jerk y’
chain. Innocuous in their own way, these reminders of the past, like finding a
buried Saxon coin, allow you to touch history, your own and other peoples;
sometime pleasant sometime not so, but it’s all
part of the bloody treatment…
Back in the day (here he goes again…)
back in the day, as nobbut a tiddler stalking the streets of Wolverhampton, I
got to hear about the Saturday lunchtime dance sessions at ‘The Queens
Ballroom’ in St Peter’s Square…I never looked back. Starting at 11.00, I
think…(I’m old and am allowed memory lapses) and running until 14.00 (that’s
2:00 p.m. in old money) the dance floor was the fish pool in which the local talent
swam to the beat whilst on the bank stalked all the young rods,
fishing…fishing… Tiddlers like me (I think I was probably 12 or 13 at the time)
stood no chance at hooking anything but I was useful bait.
A lady’s accessibility to an overture
could be gauged from my asking, in the words of Chris Montez, “Lets Dance.” The
more experienced anglers were hoping to get me to break up a pair of
handbag-hugging girls and then move in for the kill whilst I got eaten as
bait…trouble was…I could dance. I know, I know. Those of you who know me will
find that difficult to understand, but I could, honest. I've mentioned before
in this daily nag, back in January I think, that I could twist with the best of
them but…and here’s the revelation…I could jive, fast and fancy and with two
girls at once! Stop laughing; I could! So, when I was dispatched to do my
separation routine I would often take both girls for a spin, enjoying the
luxury and thrill of my ability to charm two ladies at one and the same time
(even if it was just dancing) then return to the sides of the dance floor and
get beaten up by seriously pissed off bruisers…
All this came sluicing back like a spring
tide when I read the single line note; the recording artist that was Little Eva
had died on this day in 2003…that’s it, and I straight-away remembered cutting
a swathe through other movers and shakers to ‘The Locomotion’, one of her
biggest hits on that dance floor of ‘The Queens Ballroom’ in Wolves…
She wasn't blessed with much fun in
her early life, Little Eva; violence perpetrated on her by her boyfriend
resulted in a song, ‘He Hit Me (It Felt like a Kiss)’…that’s some title, huh…
being written after she had said that his violence was motivated by his love
for her…so many times the woman feels guilty for causing it; why? She died relatively
young (59) of cancer and much of her time between early hits and some later
touring were spent in penniless obscurity as a single parent caring for three
children. In retrospect (of course) I had it better…just a dancer…but it was me
dancing to her tune this time.
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