by Len Goodman
'What's that for Benny?'
'Listen, Len. I wouldn't have even gone in there and had a bet if it hadn't been for you. That will pay for your holiday, it will pay for your travel and hopefully it will give you all your spending money as well.'
I resisted but Benny was insistent and he was right. It paid for everything and we had money left over when we got back home.
From then on we went to Monaco every year. Sometimes we went by train, sometimes we flew and just once we went by car, but we always met up with Benny and Sylvie and had a brilliant holiday. In 1976 I was banned from driving for six months for getting three speeding tickets, which in those days was an automatic ban. I really needed to be able to drive with all the demonstrations we were doing all over the country, so I decided to go to court to try and contest it. My case came up at Greenwich Crown Court and I felt sure my gift of the gab would get me off; I was, I pleaded, only doing 38 in a 30-mile-an-hour limit. The court was full of policemen, all there to deal with their respective cases; I was scheduled to be the second person to come up before the magistrate. My confidence quickly ebbed away when the man before me, who was also there for speeding, was asked if losing his licence would affect his employment.
'Yes,' he said. 'I'm a milkman.'
He got a six-month ban. I went into the dock and the clerk read out my speeding charge.
'Your name?' said the clerk.
'Leonard Goodman.'
'Your occupation?'
'Ballroom dancer.'
From around the court and amongst the gathered group of policemen there was tittering; from others there was out and out laughter. It really bugged me.
'What's so funny?' I asked.
'Be quiet,' said the magistrate.
'Well... I don't see what's funny, do you?'
'Quiet,' said the judge a second time.
For me there was no letting up. 'You tell me what's funny.'
In addition to getting a £25 fine for contempt of court I got a six-month ban and a further £20 fine.
Losing my licence proved to be something of a nightmare because I always drove to wherever we were demonstrating, which I never minded. I had a Daimler Sovereign that helped ease the pain of miles and miles of motoring. Cherry could drive but she refused to drive the Daimler saying the bonnet was too long for her; we spent the next six months in her Ford Cortina. Luckily my six-month ban ended two weeks before our annual trip to Monaco, so I suggested that this year we drive there instead of flying. In the middle of August we set off from Dover for Monte Carlo. We were in no hurry and so we took three days, enjoying a night in Paris and another in Lyon on the way south. We would often meet other dancers in Monaco who were also there on holiday and this year was no exception. Robert and Linda Bellinger were there, as was Peter Maxwell, who had just won the Blackpool Professional Latin American Championships; Peter has now probably become one of my closest friends in the dance business.
After our two weeks we were asked by Peter if he could have a lift back to England as British Airways was on strike and he had to get back for some work. The plan was to try and get back in just one day, so we left about five in the morning; a case of foot down and go on the autoroute. We hadn't been on the road long and were just outside of Avignon when smoke suddenly started appearing from under the bonnet; I knew it was most probably the head gasket. We ground to a halt on the hard shoulder and pretty soon a police car came along. They arranged for a truck to come and we were loaded on the back to be driven to Avignon. None of us could speak French and to almost everything I asked there was a shrug and those two little words from the French mechanic, 'C'est impossible.'
It all boiled down to the fact that they had no Daimler parts and so we were stuck. The 'we' was Cherry and me, because as soon as we got back to Avignon, Peter nipped off to the train station and legged it home. Eventually we managed to get a place on the car train from Avignon, which meant me bribing people to push the car on to the train; after we arrived in Calais it was a repeat procedure, and then in England too. The AA took us home from Dover docks. We were four days late, several thousand francs poorer and it cost another £1,000 to get the engine sorted at the garage in Bexley.
Our last Monaco holiday was in 1977 for which we returned to our normal method of getting there – we took the plane. We spent our days on the beach. One thing I used to really enjoy was watching films at the lovely outside cinema right on the promenade down at one end of Monaco. They screened English films; as we sat back to enjoy the movie a waitress came round with drinks. They started at about eight o'clock and afterwards we would go into the Sporting Club. One evening while we were in the casino having a drink we struck up a conversation with a Parisian named Michel. He was olive skinned, handsome, about my age, and may have been of Moroccan descent I think. He obviously had a bit of dough as we saw him at the casino most nights playing roulette on one of the tables with a minimum bet of 1,000 francs. A couple of evenings later I was playing blackjack and when I finished I wandered back to where Cherry and Michel were sitting having a chat.
'Michel has got us two tickets so we can go and see Manhattan Transfer tomorrow night,' said Cherry.
'That's brilliant, Michel, thank you so very much. They're one of my favourite groups.'
Cherry and I had a wonderful night at their concert and so I couldn't wait to thank him the next day. Michel was once more very gracious and offered to take Cherry and me, along with Benny and Sylvie, to dinner at the Café de Paris in the square. We had champagne, beautiful food, brandies afterwards; it was a fabulous night. What a generous man, I thought. The next day I paid the price, but not from a hangover; something I had eaten hadn't agreed with me. I felt in no mood to move far away from the nearest bathroom so while the rest of them went off to the beach I stayed in the apartment sitting on the balcony reading a book. It really wasn't much of a tragedy but when they came back in the evening and suggested dinner I decided my stomach still needed to rest. Off the three of them went for dinner.
When Cherry arrived home it was about 2 a.m. I'd been asleep for a while. She told me that she, Sylvie and Benny had been to Jimmy's, the disco attached to the Sporting Club; we had been there often. It was at the end of a pier and when it was warm they slid the glass walls back so it felt like you were dancing out in the middle of the ocean. I went quickly back off to sleep and the next day I felt as good as new, so it was back to our routine and a trip to the beach. Around lunchtime Michel came sauntering up the beach and sat down with us and chatted away in his broken English; we arranged to all go to the openair cinema that evening. For the last few days of the holiday I spent most of the day at the beach on my own. Cherry regularly went off into town to go shopping, which was most unlike her as we usually spent our days all together, sitting around, chatting and soaking up the sun.
All too soon it was time to leave for home. It wasn't quite a case of see you next year to Benny and Sylvie because we saw them regularly in London but we always talked about our next trip to Monaco.
Not long after we got back from holiday I was due to leave for Johannesburg to judge the South African Championships and do some teaching. Having been a successful competitor it was a short step to becoming a judge. When I say a short step it was not that I immediately jetted off around the world judging in glamorous places. First of all I did some judging in dance schools, then in regional competitions, then the Kent County Championships and then I got on what was called the Sunday circuit, which was the step before doing some of the larger regional competitions. I'd served my apprenticeship and so it was nice to reap the rewards.
One day, between arriving home and my leaving again, Cherry said we'd had a call from a guy named René Roulin. He had a dance studio in Vincennes, just outside Paris; we had been there many times to teach and demonstrate. While the standard there was not as good as in the UK we both enjoyed the place. René was a dapper little chap with a pencil moustache. We would only have to suggest going somewhere or doing something a
nd René was on the case. On one occasion Cherry said she would love to go to the Lido. 'D'accord,' said René, and he drove us in his car, parked right outside and in we went; we had the best table, there was champagne and no charge! He was one of those blokes who seemed to know everyone; even though we couldn't talk French, by the way he spoke you knew he knew his way around. René wanted us to do some teaching, but the dates coincided with my trip to Johannesburg.
'No problem, Cherry, why don't you go and I'll do the South African job as planned.'
When I got back from Jo'burg, Cherry said it had all gone very well and René had as usual looked after her extremely well.
'He asked me if I had any old dance dresses for sale as some of his pupils are about to do a competition and they need some. You remember we talked about me getting rid of a lot of those old dresses of mine, the ones I never use? All they do is sit in the wardrobe, collecting dust, so I said I'd sell them to him. René also said he would like me to do some more teaching for him.'
'That's a good idea, Cherry, it'll free up some space in the wardrobe and earn a few bob at the same time.'
So in a few days Cherry went off to Paris, but not alone. She had a car full of dresses and she took her mum with her. She said Joy needed a bit of a holiday.
The day after Cherry left, Benny called me; it must have been a very hard call for him to make. 'Len, Cherry has gone to Paris to meet Michel, the Frenchman from Monte Carlo. Her mother has gone too because Cherry is going to leave you and she wants her mum to meet her future husband or whatever they plan on doing.'
'You what?' was about all I could manage. I was practically speechless. I was so bloody mad at Cherry for what she was doing, but I was also mad at myself for being so naive. 'So that's why she learning all those little French phrases.'
Benny knew because Sylvie and Cherry were very close. Not that I felt any bad feelings towards either Sylvie or Benny. In these situations it's best to try not to take sides. When I put the phone down I just sat in the chair thinking about what a shitty thing it was. I wasn't so much mad with Cherry; she had found someone else that she'd fallen in love with. Sometimes it's impossible to fight those emotions, but I was hurt; hurt that she had done it, hurt by the way I found out and hurt that she had gone over to France behind my back. With hindsight I knew that ours was a dancing marriage, one that lacked that spark of real love. Cherry was not the one and only, but it was still a bugger at the time.
The more I sat there, the madder I got. As the old saying goes: don't get mad, get even. Well, whether I got even is a matter of opinion, but I certainly got mad and retaliated in the only way I could think of.
Our house was about a mile from Cherry's mum's house in Bexley Heath. Joy lived in a cul-de-sac; you had to climb up 10 or 12 stairs to her bungalow. There was a front lawn that was raised up above the pavement so that anyone walking by the house on the pavement couldn't see Joy's garden. Over the next two days I took everything of Cherry's that I could possibly think of, all of her clothes, her minks, her jewellery, records, a nest of tables her mother had given her, and laid everything out neatly on her mother's front lawn; thank God it didn't rain. The postman must have thought it was some kind of house sale! I then had the locks changed on our house. I knew she would take her mum home first, and so I put a note through Joy's front door. It just said: 'Don't come back, I know everything'. I also phoned everyone with whom we had shows booked, it was about 80 in all, to tell them that Cherry and I were no longer together and I wouldn't be able to fulfil my obligation to demonstrate. Then I packed a suitcase of my own and went to tell my mum and dad. After that I got in my car and went off to the Lake District for two weeks to a lovely hotel called Old England on Lake Windermere.
When I got back there was a letter from a solicitor saying Cherry was starting divorce proceedings. There was no surprise in that, but it surprised me that she knew exactly how much money we had in the bank. At the time it really upset me because she left me for a multi-millionaire, but all she asked for was our savings. Of course she was entitled to her share, but in these situations it's hard to be rational. All I could think at the time was how it would wipe me out for quite a while.
About three years later I was walking through Bexley Heath, where I had gone to buy a music system from a nice shop called Young's. They sold record players with variable speeds and pitch control, which was great if you wanted to slow down a cha-cha-cha a notch. After I'd ordered it I walked out of their front door and bumped straight into Cherry, who I hadn't seen since she buggered off to Paris.
'Let's go and have a coffee over in Hydes, shall we, Len?'
It was lovely to see her; the anger had long gone in me and she seemed very happy. She told me she had two kids, which was certainly a surprise. After we talked for a while I just blurted it out.
'You know what, Cherry, the one thing that really got to me was the fact that you cleaned me out when you went off with your multi-millionaire French bloke.'
After I calmed down, we talked a while longer and said our goodbyes; I thought nothing more of it, other than I was glad to have got it off my chest. Three days later a cheque arrived from Cherry and a note to say sorry. I'm so glad, not for the money, which was nice, but because it put a full stop on things for me.
Chapter Ten
It's a Family Affair
With Cherry gone it totally put the kibosh on me demonstrating: it's a bit difficult to do it on your Jack Jones. It made a big hole in my income. It was what bought us our lovely detached house in Old Bexley, which I was still living in, it got us a nice car, which I still had, so I wasn't complaining. It was the dance school that ticked over, bringing in steady money, so for me it was back to teaching four or five days a week – no hardship because I've always loved that aspect of my work. This was also when I discovered disco, along with just about everyone else in Britain, but it wasn't a discovery I made for myself. Outside of work I found I enjoyed being on my own, suiting myself as to what I did and when I did it. I started doing things I hadn't done much of while Cherry and I were together; one of the best things was going for fish and chips every Friday night.
Aldridges, the chippy, was in Bexley village and the only challenge I faced every Friday was getting there before they closed – at ten o'clock on the dot. My last class finished at 9.30, so time was tight as I had to lock up as well as drive there. As often as not, as I walked through the door at 9.57 p.m., Mr Aldridge would turn the sign around from open to closed. He would then stand by the door to let anyone who managed to get in before the curfew out and to stop anyone getting in – there was never any budging him, even if you were a regular.
One night I just got through the door with barely seconds to spare, but I was not the last: another guy followed me a second or two later. I vaguely recognised him but couldn't remember from where. After the two people in front of us had been served and ushered out, it was just me and this other bloke. Mrs Aldridge was serving and she assumed we were together.
'What can I get you boys?'
Simultaneously we said, 'Cod and chips please.'
'We've only got one piece of cod left, I'm afraid, so which of you is to have it?' asked Mrs A.
'You have it,' I said.
'No mate, you have it,' said the other customer.
'No really, you have it.'
The debate on who was to have the one remaining piece of cod went on for a bit, with neither of us wanting to take it. With Mr Aldridge anxious to close up I finally said:
'Look, I only live two minutes away – why not come back to my place and we can share it.'
'Okay, sounds good to me. I'm John Knight by the way.'
Back at my place it was a bit like a scene out of the Bible, with me dividing up the fish, luckily I had a new loaf of bread in the house. We sat and enjoyed cod and chips and a beer, chatting away like we'd known each other for years. We discovered that we were both members of Dartford Golf Club, which solved the mystery of where I'd seen him before. We a
rranged to play golf the following Saturday afternoon. It was the start of a friendship that has lasted 30 years. It was a friendship rooted in our mutual love of golf, but as time went along we found we shared a sense of mischief, we laughed at the same things and we were both single blokes in our early thirties. We were a whole bunch of trouble.
My working day began about 2 p.m. with private lessons, which lasted until about five, classes followed this for children and then there were adult classes until about 9.30 or 10 p.m., from Monday to Friday. John owned shops selling wallpaper and paint, called Mr Discount. He later sold out to a firm named Fads. All the shops had a manager, allowing John to play golf pretty much any morning; we'd each found a new golfing buddy. We would meet at the golf club around nine o'clock and have nine or 18 holes depending on what else either of us had on. John and I had more fun and laughs than in any other period of my life to that point. We have similar personalities, and we look alike – lots of people think we're brothers. With our love of fun and practical jokes we had plenty to occupy us on days when the weather put paid to golf. Some days we would sit and talk about going into business together. Wine bars were the big new thing at the end of the seventies. We sat for hours discussing every little detail of ours; we even had a great name for it – Chez When. Some ideas sound better when you're drunk. We spent a lot of time on detailed research – probably the best bit of it as a business venture.
John and I were great playmates and were always getting into mischief, like the time we tried selling a boa constrictor belonging to a pet-shop owner that had a shop next to one of John's Mr Discount stores. Wilf, the guy who owned the pet shop, came in to say, 'I've got to pop opposite to the dentist. I'll be about 20 minutes. I'll put a sign in the door saying if anybody wants anything to come in and see you. Is that okay, John?'