THE DANCERS
My mother and father loved to dance, in fact, they met at a dance studio in the twenties. It was a time after the First World War, when the flappers were in vogue. In the photo my Dad is a very handsome man and very strong as he is holding an attractive blonde women (my Mum) high above his head. They used to dance in various shows round Adelaide and in South Australia before they were married, but after they wed and babies started to arrive, there wasn’t the time or occasion to perform in public.
However they made a very fine couple on the ballroom floor whenever they attended functions and then my Dad branched out into another form of dance. He and his brother, dressed in “drag” put on song and dance shows that had everybody in stitches of laughter. I was very young, I didn’t know what “drag” was but I thought it was very funny and laughed along with the crowd.
Then Dad went even further in theatrical performance. He knew a few conjuring tricks, but then decided to become a fully fledged magician and Mum became his side kick. All the kids on the street would flock to our house to see him perform. We were in awe of his tricks making things disappear, finding things in unlikely places. Once my parents threw a huge Christmas party with 60 kids in our backyard. My Dad was the star performer and I was very proud of his amazing abilities. His piece de resistance was when he pulled a live rabbit out of a hat! Thank God the rabbit was white and not brown like my pet bunnies that I had in a cage near the back fence.
Although my parents never went on to dance on the public stage, they passed on their love of dance to their daughter – me. They took me to ballet performances whenever they could and when I was very young I told everybody that I was going to be a travelling ballerina when I grew up. I travelled a lot, but never became a professional ballerina. I did however take up belly dancing later in life and whenever I did my shimmies, I thought of Mum and Dad, the Dancers.