Scottish Country Dancing

At Harvey Road JMI, when they got together to have their meetings and decide the curriculum, they must have decided that a key life skill for any pubescent Watford child was the ability to do a Highland reel.

So once a week, the record player box on wheels got wheeled out into the hall and we had to do the world's most reluctant, grim Scottish drag foot dancing. Not even English country dancing. Scottish. Why?

I don't think they're allowed to inflict this sort of thing on children any more since Childline and Esther Rantzen. Did any other schools in the Watford area insist on teaching bizarre and useless lessons like this?

 

HEEEEE-BEEEEE diddly, diddly, diddly, diddly....diddly, diddly, diddly, DIDDLY.


That's how the music went.

 

We did country dancing in junior school. I don’t remember it prefixed as ‘Scottish’ though.

The main challenge was having to dance with girls. Bad business.

Not sure why I hated it so much. It should have been a blast.

 

We had to do ballroom dancing at Sir james altham school, south oxhey.

 

Key South Oxhey life skill.

 

I did it at school. Nothing wrong with preserving traditional ways, including dance.

I know Morris dancers look like tosspots, but i like the history and pagan celebration associated with their jangly nonsense.

Let people have things.

 

Sorry just saw it was 'Scottish' which makes it bad.

Jimmy kranky, Rangers and Celtic, they hate the English etc. Bring back Longshanks.

 

By all means, but don't inflict it on everybody.

And how 'traditional' is Scottish bloody dancing in the hills and glens of bonnie Croxley Green anyway?

 

It's very educational and sets us up with life skills.

Forward planning, quick thinking maths, with "agile" techniques so we can work out where to start so that when the best bits come along many moves ahead I would end up with delightful Diana and a degree of evidence based risk assessment to calculate the dangers of ending up with smelly Sadie instead.

 

You had to be light on your toes to survive

 

It was English Country Dancing at St Mary's, where I went. My country dancing teacher then left for a post at Harvey Road, but I think you're older than me, but she'd have been teaching the English version I'm sure. I saw her dancing at the Sportsman once with her Morris troupe.

 

This.

 

With a handkerchief and a “hey nonny nonny”? No wonder people hate the English.

How about that Greek dancing, @wfcmoog ?

 

As I used to walk under the tunnel at Carpenders Park Station of a dark evening, maybe past a couple of lairy looking skinheads I often thought this will go best if I’m fabulous! Mwah!

 

If you're asking,i am dancing !!

 

With regard to the Scottish aspect of it, there was a time, before seven shades of petty nationalism took the UK by storm, that people celebrated culture from across the UK as if it was their own. English people enjoyed Welsh singing or knew the words to folk ditties like Speed Bonny Boat.

I visited a care home in the Midlands through work a few years back and it was a Scottish themed day. ‘This looks a hoot’ I thought cynically. But it was. All the Brummie old timers were Scotting it up big style, singing heartily and munching on various high calorie Scots delicacies. The one Scot there seemed to be enjoying herself.

So why not? Scots dance, African dancing, Greek dancing, Caribbean dancing, Australian er something, it’s all good. Everybody dance. Donal where’s your troosers?

 

Liked for “Jangly nonsense”.

 

We did country dancing at primary school too, Sacred Heart in Bushey, the way I saw it, it was 30 minutes away from the classroom. I don't remember whether it was Scottish or any other type, it was just referred to as country dancing.

 

Chesham Bois, Chesham Bois. Lace up boots an’ corduroys.

 

We had to do country dancing at Kingsway with the old and fearsome Mrs. Lee. Horrible, spiteful woman whose over-enthusiasm for dancing scared us to death as 8yr olds when it was our turn to dance with her and her saggy boobs jumping up and down at eye level in front of us.

 

It was called country dancing at Abbots Langley JMI but to my pre-teen ears was effectively a collection of Scottish jigs and reels. Did seem like quite an odd addition to the curriculum at the time!

 

I wasn’t taught any dancing at school and I have suffered ever since.

Learning any form of dance at school should be embraced and celebrated, especially if it involves holding girls, as this is an essential life skill.

Junior schoolchildren should start with traditional maypole dancing to teach our pagan roots and the waltz to teach coordination, discipline and how to touch girls appropriately without being accused of some heinous crime by the PC brigade or Portia’s mummy!

 

Remember country dancing at school at the age of about 9-10. Boys picking girls, girls picking boys. Small kids having the first realisation that, despite the glowing tributes from parents, Aunties, Uncles and Grandparents, they were ugly as sin and never going to be a hit with the opposite sex. My first realisation that being tall and having blue eyes was a good thing .

 

Handkerchiefs also feature in Greek dancing. I never formally trained in Greek dancing, but I've done it pissed and at my wedding.

 

(Mis)quoting from the classics.

 

I must have missed this as primary school thing and probably by less than decade given I know some of you are early 40s.

Anyway, going by a lot of the above it has all the hallmarks of the next big historic child safeguarding scandal.

 

I went to Harvey Road and it was just country dancing when I was there. Still absolute shyte mind.

 

1940s?

 

Was the record player box on wheels still there?

 

That’s going to happen when someone remembers that if you forgot your PE kit in olden times, teachers would make you exercise in your underwear.

I mean what if that landed on a week that wasn’t your turn for a clean pair of shreddies?

 

Standard issue 70s kit. Everything on wheels.

 

Did you have Miss Crawley?