Sword Dancer

 

I’ve become a sword dancer.

‘Come at seven,’ they said.

On a day rainy day I pulled into the car park against the gothic pile of a church and then waited for others to arrive.

I was on time, but the people who were to unlock the hall doors were late. It was a cold night and raining. Thankfully some degree of prescience meant that I had a hot water bottle with me.

The hall eventually was opened up and the sword dancers entered.

It was my first lesson.

Thankfully the ‘blades’ looked nothing like swords.

“Hold the swivel in your right hand,” I was ordered.

I puzzled over the handles wondering which one was the swivel. The ‘swivel’ obvious the others had to be pointed out to me. It was a handle that moved. The wooden handle on the other end was fixed.

So that was how the illusion of the dance was created, the handle moved saving twisted arms from falling off.

Before too long I was walking under ‘blades’.

These were ‘rapper’ blades apparently used by miners to scrap the coal dust from the backs of ponies.

“Don’t duck,” a woman called.

It was all right for her. When the arches formed she was quite safe, being so short in statue, whereas for me the blades were circling just above my head.

“Don’t duck,” she yelled again. But I did, ignoring her, and wisely so it turns out as the blades narrowly missed slicing into the forehead of a tall girl opposite me.

Somehow we weaved in and out, formed what they called ‘nuts’, spun around and picked up our blades anew.

Afterwards, I rang the ex-teenager, ‘I’m now sword dancer,’ I proclaimed wanting to impress, but I left out the information about pits, ponies and coal dust.

I’m a Man!

 

In the traditional folk dancing group I have just joined women outnumber men. I was so impressed by the willingness of some of the women to take the man’s role, so that so many more could then enjoy the dance. They slipped bands over them so that we could identify them more readily. And they did so with minimum fuss.

I had wondered if men could as easily take the part of a woman if ever it was necessary.

The other evening I got my answer.

One of the dances called for a set of nine people. The Caller wanted the men to stand in the middle with a woman on either side.

By chance in my group of nine people this worked out perfectly. And we also had real men and real women. Except, I noticed a man in one of the woman’s position. I was impressed. By taking the woman’s part in this dance he was allowing the other eight people to dance.

Nobody said anything to him, as we went through the walk through.

Then by chance he looked around at the other sets and realised the role he was playing.

If this had been a woman playing the part of a man she would simply have got on with it. She would not have made any fuss. Would not have caused a hold up. But not this man.

“Hang on a minute,” he called out, preventing The Caller from explaining any more of the dance steps. “I can’t do this. I’m a man!”

In this particular dance it really didn’t matter who was who, at all. There were right hand stars, and left hand stars, and we then had to follow this person or that person. There were no paired couple steps at all. It was a dance like a whirl of cogs rather than of romantic hearts. And we already knew this from the walk through. Everyone knew this.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter, _____,” someone, perhaps his wife said.

“But this is a part for a woman!” he protested, “and I’m a man.”

His voice was getting louder, and I also wondered if he’d also lowered it an octave or two to emphasise the point. He blustered, inflating his chest with air.

“I’m a man!”

His shoulders were flexed, he-man style, as if he was about to wrestle a woolly mammoth.

The others’ cajoling had no effect on him.

“I’m a man,” he declared.

His arm went into the air. He wanted a woman who was sitting out to take his place.

A dainty elderly lady did so.

As the he-man still chuntering his man-tra sat down with arms folded across his chest, and with his legs set apart.

He seemed too large for his chair, but soon as the dance began we forgot all about him.

He was after all only a man!

The Devil’s Chain

 

I’m standing still and everything around me is in confusion.

“Don’t stand still,” the caller implores.

I look for hands to hold, to make the lady’s chain. There are none.

Someone grabs me, it’s an unknown woman, “I’m your man,” she says. She spins and releases me, but I’m now going the wrong way.

“The woman should be on your right!” the  caller’s exasperated voice yells.

I’m unravelling the complicated weave of the dance. Everything has become chaotic. We stop to reform and wait for the beat to reach a beginning again.

I try once more. It goes half right, but there is one part I can’t recall, I’m suppose to peel away in a half-eight or something, and then do something dozy with the man, who is it the woman-man, and then step to the left, or was it the right?

On the next dance a woman elbows me sharply in the chest and I wince. I think she was trying to show me the right way to go, but  it might have been deliberate.

I’m trying to be light-footed, to twirl on toes. I greet the ones I walk towards with a smile.

“Don’t smile,” the caller snaps.

I realise that the others don’t.

They are simply mechanical parts in the machine of the dance. With tight thin lips they shunt forwards and backwards.

The expert real men occasionally grab me tightly and march me firmly into position, before releasing me to my twirling fate elsewhere.

“Keep the woman on your right,” the caller snaps.

I puzzle over rights and lefts. First we are couple number two and then we couple number one. Now we are couple number three and improper!

The brief rehearsal hasn’t been enough. I’ve forgotten the next bit as I’m grabbed. Was it three steps then a half-turn? Do I go forwards or back?

By the end of the evening there are none that want us to join their set. and I can’t blame them. I am disturbing the free flow harmony. But some do join us eventually.

“Don’t dance it. Walk it!”

I realise this is what the others are doing, with flat footed accuracy.

There are more women to men, so many of the women are having to double up as men. I don’t know who is a man and who is a woman anymore. The men-women also get confused and remember the woman’s steps and not the man’s

The men have none of this confusion. They have never been asked to dance a woman’s part. They have no idea how difficult this can be. How alien and confusing.

“Right hand, left hand,” the caller bellows.

There is an interval and the floor clears.

We sit. I’m hot and sweating, but feeling quite please with how it’s going. I got some of the steps right.

My friend and I were in an animated conversation, When the caller comes a calling.

I look up.

He’s not  happy.

“We’re not that bad are we? my friend asks.

“Well, yes, you are,” he says.

My friend is mortified, and I feel upset as it is her birthday and I’d said I’d accompany her, as she wanted to dance.

“He’s just watching us,” she said.

I’m embarrassed.

When the next dance is announced we gamely stand up again.

“Oh, I’m going to go through that again,” the caller says wearily during the next walk through. “You two change places.”

Everyone stands still to watch.

“We’ll go through that again.”

He dictates the moves, but I’m struggling to remember the earlier steps.

The music begins, and I am whirled into position. Some dragged me here. Some drag me there. I’m cajoled by some and yanked into position by the exasperated male experts. But there are some delights. A half-blind man cheers whenever I repeatedly find his waiting arms.

“Here she is again,” he laughs, and I’m delighted by his sense of fun as he promenades me back to my partner.

At the end of the dance, the caller jokes, “I’ve been watching the newcomers and calling for them, I knew they were behind. I didn’t realise they were four beats behind the rest.”

He gets a laugh, but it is embarrassing. He is watching my every mis-step.

I am delighted when a real man takes my friend away to dance. Glad that she is given respite from my errors and clumsiness.

Right at the very end this same man reappears again He kindly walks with me in the dance. Shadowing me so that with this one I can not go wrong.

I am grateful. I think the dance was called ‘The Devil’s Chain’. First I’m on the inside and then I’m on the outside. He indicates the next person I am to dance with. These men grab me with a fierceness worthy of the devil himself. I am touched by this help. Then when I look for him he is ahead of me seated on a chair and smiling to see that I’m doing the dance properly.

I’m happy and rosy-red when the folk dance evening finishes.

It was fun.

But the next day, I fret that perhaps I  ruined it for the tight lipped, flat footed, elbowing dancing experts who had probably wanted a lovely evening of intricate woven dancing and there I was unravelling it all.

.

Bert Jansch

 

I don’t know the names of the people who sewed my clothes, made my carpets or designed and made my furniture. I make my tea not knowing who made my life so much better by designing a kettle with a flip lid or who enhanced my enjoyment by choosing that particular blend of tea. They are nameless and legion. Perhaps every item should have a tag on it. this was made by … and brought to you by… and then a whole list of people could be applauded for their vision and skill.

But music is different. There is a tag on every song to say who it was written by… and then there is always a singer’s name.

So we more easily moan the loss of the singer-songwriter than we do the person who designed the kettle.

So with apologises to the anonymous kettle makers who find themselves entering the pearly gates I want to pay tribute to the singer songwriter by your side whose name I do know: Bert Jansch.

I never saw him play. I was not a huge fan, but I have enjoyed so much of his music over the years. His guitar playing skills made acoustic songs hauntingly beautiful.

Sadly this troubadour, who bound the present day to the tender music of yesteryear, has passed on by; and England’s lost and ruined castles are draughtier and silent now.

 

 

 

My young love said to me,

My mother won't mind

And my father won't slight you

For your lack of kind.

And she laid her hand on me

And this she did say:

It will not be long, love,

Till our wedding day.

As she stepped away from me

And she moved through the fair

And fondly I watched her

Move here and move there.

And then she turned homeward,

With one star awake,

Like the swan in the evening

Moves over the lake.

The people were saying,

No two e'er were wed

But one had a sorrow

That never was said.

And I smiled as she passed

With her goods and her gear,

And that was the last

That I saw of my dear.

Last night she came to me,

My dead love came in.

So softly she came

That her feet made no din.

As she laid her hand on me,

And this she did say:

It will not be long, love,

'Til our wedding day.

Paint Stalactites

 

I’m not very good at painting.

My window sills over the years have all grown stalactites.

These have been formed as the white gloss paint slowly drips after I’ve finished painting a window sill.

It was the warm sunshine that got me painting.

It’s a nerve-wracking procedure for me as I have to use the step ladder, and just climbing onto the first rung is scary.

I also tend to get more paint on the glass than on the window frames.

This year I sellotaped around the glass, close to the frame so that when my brush inevitably erred I could then remove the tape, and revealed… drum roll… a perfectly painted window.

That was the plan.

A week later, I removed the tape.

I even scoured along its edge with the sill so that the paint would not be pulled off the window frame itself as the tape was removed.

Sellotape has a mind of its own.

Somehow despite the soaring temperatures that week and having left the gloss paint a week to dry, some of the paint on the sellotape was still wet.

The sellotape then snapped as I tried to pull it away, leaving long thin tapering fiddly sections that I had to prise away from the glass.

I realised that somehow the paint had  seeped under the sellotape.

How could that be?

‘That’s from last year’s paint job,’ I kidded myself.

The tape having broken would then writhed like a snake into as many different formations of the figure eight as it could possibly invent. Wrapping itself tightly around my fingers, so that I had to prise it off, before placing it in a heap at the top of my wobbly step ladders.

Soon there was more paint on the windows, on my fingers and on the step ladders than on the window frames themselves.

As for a nice clean paint job… well no, I’m afraid not.

And when I last checked, all the paint stalactites had grown a little longer to show that yet another year had passed.

Looks Deceive

 

I was aware that I was being watched. I looked up and saw a woman leaning out of an upstairs window next door but one.

She was staring at me, and had probably been staring at me long before I looked up.

“Hello,” I said.

She didn’t reply but continued to stare, making me feel very uncomfortable in my own garden.

That particular house is occupied by students, a different cohort every year.

Last week, I saw the new intake for the first time.

The weather was warm and they were outside on the lawn. Two were sunbathing in what seemed to be outsized pyjamas into which they were squeezed. A young man was idly kicking a football as he stood chatting to them. A studious-looking bespectacled girl was sitting upright seemingly concentrating on the papers she was holding, whilst an older red-haired woman looked on.

I was impressed by the studious girl. She was obviously trying to work despite the others lazing around her. She was obviously keen to get a good degree and to get her studying off to a flying start.

As I glimpsed them a little later, I realised there was something wrong with this picture.

The studious girl was the focus of attention. Her hands seemed to be busy with the papers in front of her.

Then she lifted the paper up to her mouth and licked its edge.

All the time I thought she had been diligently studying she had in fact been rolling a joint.

The woman who had stared at me from the window a couple of days later and not responded to my, ‘Hello’ was breathing smoke out into the air.

So with this cohort, it looks as though the local university isn’t likely to climb any higher in the league tables this year.

The Pretty Things Sad Eye

 

Sad Eye

Well if you ever baby,

Feel like changing your mind,

Don’t think twice just take it easy,

Anything you do will please me.

Just as long as you see me.

 

And if you ever baby,

Feel like starting again,

All you gotta do is phone me,

There is nothing you need show me.

Just as long as you know me.

 

Well I knocked on every door,

Looked on every sea and shore.

Just to find that you had left me.

 

You were a special one,

Like the setting of the sun,

Now it’s too late to help me.