The First Dance

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Roger Marsh of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Jean Alison Dickinson and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

The First Dance

By
Jean Allison Dickinson

The girls had practiced every week
With Mrs. Deightan, who taught P.E.
Slow, slow, quick quick, slow
The piano beat out every tune.

The day was approaching very fast
A dress had been sewn and shoes bought
With precious coupons and every thought
Was centred on which boy would ask her to dance

The time had arrived and she was ready
The dress looked quite well but her legs were unsteady
But off she went to the school great hall
And they all stood around like dolls on a stall

A boy was coming across the floor to ask her
Her legs felt like jelly and her heart beat faster
When into the air with a shrill crescendo
The siren sounded and all pandemonium
Broke loose and into the shelter they all had to file
The Jerries were dropping bombs but they missed by a mile
They were all in the dark but the teachers had torches

Then in came her Dad to walk her home
And that was the end of the dancing that night
So she didn't get to know how the lad held her tight
Or how it was to do the quick step
With a well dressed young man scrubbed clean and bright

All the weeks they had spent learning to dance
But her Mum said "Never mind
It could have been worse
You are still in one piece —
Your very first dance!!

(The German bombers came over Whitby practically every night to set the Moors alight thus giving them a marker for bombing either Hull or Middlesbrough, in the process many an incendiary bomb landed on the houses in West Cliff where the writer was living at the time - The Metropole Hotel suffered a direct hit and there were two huge craters in Stakesby Rd. near to a Petrol Pump near the old Station).

Pr-BR

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