by Allie Burns
After the war, having married and had three children, my mother went to the class in Wembley. When I was old enough she would take me with her, which is when I first experienced the fascinating camaraderie of adult women, of all ages, shapes and sizes and from all walks of life. Everyone was known by their first name, again very unusual in those days, and no one knew or cared about anyone’s status in the world outside because they were all part of the League family which was all that counted. Another early memory is of our father taking us up to London to see my mother performing in a show at the Royal Albert Hall. It was a tarantella item for which she had a tambourine and beribboned skirt which ended up in our dressing-up box along with her ‘walking out’ velvet skirt and cape which she wore to Prunella’s wedding. Mrs Bagot Stack had first hired the hall in 1931 for a public demonstration of her work. After that it was hired on a regular basis for shows in which members from all over the country and abroad performed items based on their class work. Little did I know then that I would be leading the production of six such shows in the same prestigious venue from 1990 onwards!
I loved to dance. It was my over-riding passion, keeping me going to ballet classes long after my contemporaries had given it up in favour of horse-riding and other pursuits. Whenever school work would permit I would continue going with my mother to the class in Wembley where I enjoyed the special blend of exercise, dance and music which made up the League work. My rather academic school did not approve of my desire to train as a teacher of ballet, nor as a teacher for the League – in those days a full-time training course in London – and I was encouraged to apply for a place at Bedford College of Physical Education which was targeting potential students for the new specialist dance course they were planning; in their words, to ‘get a proper teacher training’.
In the opening chapter of The Lido Girls, I realised immediately that Natalie had been trained in PE and was working in a PE college before the words were on the page. How well Allie sums up the entrenched views that resonated with me, even though I was at college 30 years after the events in this book. The history of the creation of the physical education teacher training colleges for women is fascinating and impressive. Those early college principals had to be strong, determined and single-minded in order to drive their ambitions for women and education forward and I do not wish to detract from that, but I was at Bedford when the teaching of gymnastics and dance was founded on the principles of Rudolf Laban. These were coupled with the prevailing educational view that children should manage their own physicality, creating their own combinations of weight, space, time and flow in the gym and on the dance floor. This was diametrically opposed to the disciplined approach of ballet and to that of the Women’s League of Health and Beauty, which attracted me because of its accessible combination of both ballet and contemporary dance technique suitable for those who wanted to enjoy the experience of exercise and dance without having to be ‘good enough’ to be a professional dancer. There was strong disapproval of these forms, which were regarded as having no educational value. This was reinforced when by chance I met and had a conversation with a woman who had trained at Dartford College of PE, probably in the period of this book. On hearing that I had been at Bedford but was now working for the League, she unleashed a torrent of criticism about the horrors of the commercial, un-educational movement which had caught so many women up in what was considered a form of mass hysteria. Her tirade shocked me at the time but only in that she and presumably so many others in her profession were so ill-informed and frankly wrong. It was during my League training that I understood and appreciated the relevance of the study of anatomy and physiology which had been so much better taught and applied than at Bedford!
When I found myself married, living in Glasgow after our first child was born, with no contemporary dance or ballet classes to go to, my mother suggested I tried going to the League class there. Not really expecting it to be what I was looking for, as I must have been sufficiently brain-washed during my training, I was pleasantly surprised by the standard of the teaching, the content of the class and of course the wonderful, friendly, welcoming atmosphere which was the same as at my mother’s class I had attended all those years ago.
In those days you progressed from the Elementary class through to the Advanced class for which you auditioned, but only after you had been a League member for four years. So I had to massage the statistics of my attendance at classes with my mother over the years, probably from the age of about 10 or 11, into the required four years in order to get into the Advanced class. In this class the work was much more challenging physically and artistically which suited me of course. They believed me, I was in and as an added bonus I was invited to join the demonstration team!
The subsequent sequence of events in my life at that time found me joining a part-time course in London to train as a teacher for the League in 1971. This has led to a life full of fitness, fun and friendship and opportunities I would never have dreamt of. I ran classes, then at the same time progressed to the training of teachers which is a most rewarding, worthwhile experience. It is a great joy to see people blossom and gain in confidence under your care and to see them take successful classes bringing huge benefits to so many others. Performing and choreographing items for the Royal Albert Hall shows has been enormously rewarding, as has leading the entire production of shows when you do your best to give so many people an extraordinary, very special experience.
Prunella Stack was a complete inspiration to me. She was a wonderful woman with incredible charm and warmth who supported me in all my endeavours, including those which might appear at first to take me away from the League. When I went to study for an MA in Dance Studies she was encouraging, interested and helpful. It was no surprise then that I chose to write my dissertation on the creation and development of the work of the Women’s League of Health and Beauty 1930–1990. It was the research for that academic study which revealed to me the importance of Mary Bagot Stack’s work, the difference it made to so many women’s lives, its place in the social history of the 1930s, all of which is reflected in Allie’s story of Natalie and Delphi.
Book Club Questions
These questions and discussion topics are intended to inspire and provoke discussion of The Lido Girls.
1.The Lido is a key setting for the novel and reflects the rising popularity of exercise and outdoor pursuits. What other symbols and themes did you notice in the novel?
2.Why did Lidos fall out of fashion? And why are they having a revival now?
3.Several times in the novel, Natalie and Delphi refer to themselves or women of their age as surplus women. This was a term coined by the media to describe the women who would be left single after so many young men were killed in World War 1. How does being from the surplus generation hold the characters back literally and psychologically?
4.How do the lives of the Lido Girls such as Yvonne, Betsy and Barnie differ from those of women today? In what ways are the pressures the same? Could you relate to their plights and challenges?
5.Why do you think the author chose to tell the story from the point of view of Natalie, rather than Delphi?
6.Why do you think that Natalie is unable to commit to Delphi as freely and publicly as Delphi is to her? Their friendship is similar to that of their contemporaries, Vera Brittain and Winifred Holtby. Like Natalie and Delphi, these two women never commented on whether their close friendship was sexual or not. Why do you think this is and should it matter?
7.Why do you think Natalie is drawn to Jack in the first instance, but ultimately is unable to commit to him? Would you have liked to have seen Natalie end up with Jack? Why/why not?
8.Delphi, and later Natalie, can see the benefits of fitness classes and the work of the Women’s League of Health and Beauty in bringing recreational fitness to ordinary working women, rather than exercise being competitive sport and the reserve of the wealthy. How inclusive of all social classes is the keep fit movement today? Does contempora
ry recreational fitness exclude particular social classes?
9.Are you satisfied with the ending? Why/why not?
10.Have you learned anything new from this story? Has it challenged or broadened your perceptions of the challenges faced by women in the 1930s?
11.If you had a question for the author, what would it be?
Copyright
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd.
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London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by HQ in 2017
Copyright © Allie Burns 2017
Allie Burns asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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E-book Edition © October 2017 ISBN: 9780008245320