No 9 - Rickmansworth Young Ladies College Concert and Dance

 Tamsin Lacy at Full Stretch

Rickmansworth Young Ladies College Concert and Dance

It was the end of year concert and dance at Denham Hall or the Rickmansworth Young Ladies College as it is known today, an Anglican college. You might inquire about being a girl’s college from where did we field the boys from for this occasion. Good question. They were boys invited from the opposition, the sixth form of the St. Joan of Arc Catholic School. No sneakers, no hats on back to front and no visible tattoos, but suits, combed hair and smelling nice were the order of the day.

The venue was the Concert Hall at Denham Hall, a place of learning for genteel young English ladies from well to do Christian families. It was not to be a night of dirty dancing with the participant’s smelling like badgers, gyrating up and down like demented racoons at the local mobile disco in the pub in the High Street, Rickmansworth.

No. Tonight was to be a night to be remembered with the chance of creating new friendships, maybe romance; a night of waltzes, fox trots and quick steps culminating with highland dancing.

There was a short welcoming speech by our headmistress, Miss Sefton, followed by a brief reply by the headmistress of the St. Joan of Arc Catholic School….. I have forgotten her name.

The show commenced with Candice Robertson performing her card tricks; inviting volunteers from the audience to ‘pick a card’. Sporting a mustache made with a felt pen liberally applied by the make-up artist, Miss Franklin our Music teacher or Lu Lu as she was affectionately known, wearing a Fez and her brother’s suit, proceeded with her act. Just to set the record straight, it was NOT Miss Franklin that was wearing a Fez and her brother’s suit doing card tricks but Candice. All in all it was a professional performance, well more or less.

This was followed by Elspeth MacDonald playing the bagpipes which apart from the odd squeak “which had every mouse in the vicinity on edge”, not my words but Rhonda’s, was also a very admirable performance.

I had grave doubts about Sarah though. She should not have been allowed in the show as she had only been introduced to the indian clubs a week earlier. She was far too confident. I was not disappointed. The less said about her performance the better. Her act reminded me of the sound of skittles being knocked down in a bowling alley.

This was the part I was dreading. It was the turn of Tamsin, gymnast extraordinaire. I was about to say Tamsin cut a fine figure with a slim body, much like that of a stick insect, but on second thoughts and without being catty I thought she had put on a bit of weight.

Tamsin had alerted us prior to the show she was ‘going for the Big Four’. I suppose I have to explain what the ‘Big Four’ was. Tamsin was well aware the stage was just about the required width to finish her act with a flourish after performing a triple reverse somersault. The ‘Big Four’ was an attempt at 4 consecutive reverse somersaults, not a triple. What was worrying was this had never been attempted before, well not by Tamsin…..or anyone else for that matter.

This was typical of Tamsin. She had not thought this one through or rehearsed it. I suspect it was the rapturous applause she was expecting to receive after completing her performance, coming to a perfect standstill, no teetering and throwing her arms in the air that was the drug that had her fired up. I saw it rather differently as a blurred vision of Tamsin being catapulted off upstage left like a jet leaving an aircraft carrier.

To this point it was a perfect performance. I was so pleased for Tamsin but it was the moment of truth. It was the vision I wrote about earlier of seeing Tamsin, upside down caught in a freeze-frame as a blurred flash of crimson of her leotards, pausing before exiting stage left halfway to completing the fourth somersault. The triple reverse somersault completed she had run out of stage for the fourth and final reverse somersault. It was only the pianist sitting off-stage that broke Tamsin’s fall and prevented any serious injury……...to Tamsin that is.

Fortunately Nurse Mayo, the duty nurse, had a first aid kit handy with tweezers and everything with a box of elastoplast, bandages and some purple stuff in a bottle to repair Tamsin’s minor flesh wound. Also elastoplast for the pianist’s facial abrasions. Tamsin gave herself quite fright; I thought she was going to sick-up all over Nurse Mayo.

I feel the less said about Tamsin’s gymnastic presentation the better. No, to be fair perhaps her performance rated seven out of ten. The evening’s entertainment of the school's talent finished with a rendition of the Hallelujah Chorus by the school choir.

It was the yearly dance that followed that was the main event of the evening. Wearing a bandage on her arm Tamsin, who was wearing a spare clan tartan of mine, was paired up in the gay gordons with gormless looking Pat O'Reilly; serves her right. However it was a clever out of formation maneuver during the eightsome reel that she was able to skilfully exchange him for another girl’s partner. I never ceased to be amazed at Tamsin’s tenacity.

Phaedra was paired with a hot looking boy named Trent…. er something or other, and in the military two-step I was corralled by the only height-challenged student from St Joan of Arc Catholic School before I could grab hold of Grant. Life is so unfair. Personally I am really not all that fussed about these end-of-year dances.

It was lovely to see Miss Pringle dancing with Mr Crisis, the science teacher, during the ceilidh. What did intrigue me was why Mr Crisis was wearing a Scottish tartan when he was presently on sabbatical leave from his home planet in the Proximus Centauri system. I certainly did not recognize his clan colors. He must have hired them from TartansЯus in the high street.

Before I leave if anybody would like a photo of Tamsin at full stretch taken during her performance I am sure there are some copies still available in the front office, somewhere.