by Pat Stewart
The following morning, I headed over to Blackpool’s Winter Gardens for my usual cup of coffee. To my delight, I turned around to find Dickie Valentine standing right behind me.
‘Hello,’ Dickie said with a smile. ‘I saw you at the ballroom last night with your friends. I was hoping I’d catch you here.’
The coffee bar was a well-known haunt for performers. It was where the theatricals called in for their early-morning cup of coffee, to chat and to swap gossip.
I sat down at one of the empty tables, unable to believe that Dickie Valentine had noticed me. Moments later, he asked if he could sit opposite me.
‘You don’t mind if I…’ he asked, his hand gesturing towards the empty seat.
‘Oh no, please do.’ I replied, beaming.
My heart beat furiously inside my chest.
Dickie ordered us two coffees, which arrived quickly. I sat there stirring the spoon in my cup, my heart beating ten to the dozen and my mouth dry with nerves.
Dickie Valentine had noticed me. I could hardly believe it! ‘Wait until I tell the others!’ I thought happily.
‘So what’s your name?’ he asked, staring at me.
‘P-P-Pat.’ I stammered. ‘It’s Pat Wilson.’
Dickie leaned back in his chair and lifted his cup of coffee off the table. Gripping the handle, he blew across the top of it in an attempt to cool it down.
‘So, Pat,’ he said, breaking the awkward silence. ‘Do you have a boyfriend?’
I shook my head. I noticed Dickie smile and I felt my heart melt inside.
‘Well, in that case, I was hoping I might take you out. Maybe to the cinema?’ he suggested.
My stomach somersaulted with delight.
‘I’d love to,’ I replied, a little too quickly.
Once again, it was all very innocent and we were more friends than sweethearts, but at least I had a good-looking man to accompany me to the cinema.
One evening, Dickie was waiting for me after the show.
‘Pat, do you fancy going out to dinner tonight?’ he asked.
‘Tonight?’
Dickie nodded. ‘Why? Is there a problem?’
‘Oh, no.’ I said with a smile. ‘There’s no problem at all.’
I ran all the way back to the dressing room. It was empty, apart from another dancer called Hilda. She was busy hanging up her stage costume.
‘Hilda, thank heavens!’ I gasped, trying to catch my breath. ‘I’ve got an emergency!’
‘Whatever’s the matter?’ Hilda asked.
I placed a hand on her shoulder and began to explain.
‘Hilda, it’s Dickie,’ I gasped.
‘What about him?’ She replied with a puzzled expression.
‘He’s asked me out to dinner!’
Hilda smiled. ‘But that’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes. I mean, I’ve said yes but the only problem is I’ve got nothing to wear!’
Hilda scratched her head. She didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, so I wandered over to a corner of the room, where I picked up a pair of jeans, a shirt and some raffia shoes. Unlike the other girls, I preferred to wear the latest cutting-edge styles. Back then, jeans were considered very daring. I’d bought them during rehearsals in London and I loved them dearly. I also knew they turned heads but for the wrong reasons because they were seen as ‘bohemian’. The jeans might have been fabulously outlandish at the time but they were hardly the correct attire to wear to dinner.
‘Ah, I see,’ Hilda said, the penny dropping.
She turned for a moment, went back over towards the clothes rail and pulled out a beautiful fitted red dress. She held it up in the air to show me.
‘I suppose you could always borrow this?’
My face lit up.
‘Are you sure? Do you think it’ll fit me?’
‘Of course it will,’ Hilda said, holding the dress up against me. ‘Although it might be a little shorter on you than it is on me because you’re so tall.’
‘Wonderful! Oh, thank you, Hilda. You’re an absolute doll!’ I said with a grin, planting a red-lipsticked kiss on the side of her cheek.
I pulled on the dress and Hilda helped me zip it up. But then a thought entered my head.
‘But won’t you need it? To wear tonight?’
Hilda sighed as she pulled on my jeans and buttoned them up. She was normally such a conservative dresser that she looked odd, standing there dressed in my ‘bohemian’ clothes.
‘Oh, no,’ she said with a wave of her hand. ‘Don’t worry about me – I’m not going anywhere special. We’re not all as lucky as you, Pat!’ she said, giving me a wink.
Dressed in Hilda’s beautiful red dress and a pair of spare shoes that I (thankfully) kept inside the dressing room, I said farewell and ran to the stage door, where Dickie was still waiting for me.
‘You look sensational!’ he said and whistled as he saw me approach.
‘Oh, this old thing,’ I said, grabbing the hem of it. ‘It’s just something I threw on.’
Around half an hour later, Dickie and I were sat enjoying a meal when the restaurant door opened. I automatically glanced up and, to my surprise, I spotted Hilda standing with her boyfriend. Sure enough, she was wearing my jeans, top and raffia shoes. She looked awkward and uncomfortable, as though she wanted the ground to swallow her whole.
‘Er, I won’t be a moment,’ I whispered to Dickie and I dashed over to have a word.
To my horror, the other diners were whispering and nudging each other as they gestured over towards the odd-looking woman wearing jeans standing in the doorway.
‘Hilda. What on earth are you doing here?’ I said, taking her by the arm and turning her away from her boyfriend.
Hilda’s face flushed as she began to explain.
‘He arrived unexpectedly from Bradford, didn’t he? It was just after you’d left. He said he wanted to take me for a meal, but all I had to wear were these awful clothes of yours.’
‘But why didn’t you go home and change?’
‘Didn’t have the time. He said he has to get back off to Bradford, so he wanted to come straight here. Said he was starving,’ she said, grimacing.
Hilda was usually such a prim dresser that her boyfriend had also seemed baffled by her odd choice of clothing. Her discomfort was clear for everyone to see.
‘Pat, I think he thinks I’ve lost my marbles dressed like this!’ she hissed.
I felt guilty because I’d ruined Hilda’s big night out. But there was very little I could do other than pat her arm and watch as she was lead, mortified, to a nearby table. I crossed the restaurant and returned to Dickie.
‘Friend of yours?’ he said, raising an eyebrow as I sat back down in my seat.
‘Yes, that’s Hilda. She’s one of the other dancers in the show.’
Dickie smiled and nodded his head.
‘Well, I do have to say she has the most fabulous and interesting choice in fashion!’ he quipped.
I grimaced as he raised his glass and chinked it against mine.
Sadly, my relationship with Dickie only lasted six weeks because he had to leave Blackpool for the band’s next show in Morecambe. It was hardly the end of a beautiful relationship but it had been fun while it had lasted.
As with the previous year, the North Pier put on a matinee every Wednesday afternoon. It did good business, particularly if the weather was poor outside, which in Blackpool it often was. If the audience was sparse, we’d ask fellow performers to turn up and ‘put bums on seats’ to make the theatre a little fuller. Of course, they were Equity members, so they got in for free.
One Friday evening, I was leaving the theatre in a rush when my foot slipped against some steps backstage. Both feet shot up into the air as I fell top to bottom, down ten wooden steps. I’d been wearing my jeans and a pair of flat ballet-style shoes, which were (and still are) very fashionable but that also had very slippy soles. My feet went from beneath me and I hit my spine against the edge
of each step as I clattered down. I’d been badly winded and was in agony as I tried to straighten my back.
Hilda had been walking behind and so she’d witnessed it all. Surprisingly, she was still talking to me following the dress debacle, so she rushed to my aid.
‘Pat, oh my goodness,’ she gasped. ‘Are you all right?’
She held out her hand to try to help me back up to my feet.
‘Oww, I’m fine, Hilda, honestly. Ouch!’ I cried. ‘It… it just hurts when I stand up…’
‘I think we need to get you checked out,’ she insisted. ‘I think you need to go to hospital.’
‘No!’ I cried. ‘I don’t think I’m that bad, honest.’
But Hilda refused to listen.
‘Nonsense. You need to get it checked out, Pat. What if you’ve broken something? What if you can’t dance? Then you’ll be out of a job for the whole of the summer!’
The thought of not being able to dance was enough to shock me into action. Hilda was right. I needed to get it checked. I blinked back the pain as I stood next to her. She held out her hand and managed to flag down a taxi.
‘Hospital, please,’ she called out to the driver as I inched my way into the back seat.
Thankfully, there wasn’t much of a queue in the hospital’s Accident and Emergency department. Before I knew it, a young Irish doctor called me. He was a tall man, with dark, Brylcreemed hair which shone in the light like a mirror as he proceeded to examine me.
‘You’ve bruised yourself quite badly there,’ he said pointing down at my back and my exposed posterior. ‘I think you’d better come back tomorrow and pay us another visit,’ he decided, before pulling the sheet over me to protect my modesty.
‘Is it bad? It’s just that I’m a dancer – a Tiller Girl,’ I explained, wincing as I tried to turn over onto my back so that I could face him. ‘I’m in a show at the end of the North Pier and I’ve got to dance tomorrow night.’
His eyes widened a little.
‘A Tiller Girl, you say?’ He grinned.
He turned towards the basin and began to wash his hands.
I nodded.
‘Yes, that’s why I need to get up on my feet as soon as possible. Why? I’ve not done any real damage, have I?’
The doctor smiled warmly.
‘No, there’s nothing broken. Don’t worry, we’ll soon have you up dancing again. You just need some heat treatment on your spine, then, once the bruising has gone, you’ll be as right as rain.’
The following morning, I returned for my heat treatment. I waited to be called in by the Irish doctor but a nurse approached and led me through to another room.
‘But I thought I was seeing that doctor,’ I said, pointing back towards his consultation room.
She shook her head.
‘No, he’s referred you to Mr Smith, so he will see you now.’
I was puzzled.
‘But why am I seeing a different doctor? I saw that one yesterday and he told me to come back today. It just doesn’t make sense.’
The nurse shrugged. It was clear she didn’t know either.
‘I’m sorry. I’ve been told to tell you that Mr Smith will be treating you from now on. So if you’d like to take a seat, I’m sure one of the other nurses will come along and collect you soon.’
With that, she turned and walked off down the hospital corridor. I was confused but I let the matter go. I didn’t care who treated me as long as I was able to go on stage later that evening. In the end, Mr Smith examined and treated my injured back using a heat lamp. The heat eased the damaged and pulled muscles around my spine, although the bruising remained.
‘You should be all right to dance. Just watch yourself on those steps, young lady.’ Mr Smith warned.
‘Oh, I will. I have no intention of talking that little trip again!’ I said and smiled as I gingerly climbed down from the examination bed.
‘Goodbye, doctor. And thank you.’
‘Just mind how you go,’ he said as I closed the door.
I arrived home to find Sheila sat waiting for me.
‘How’s the back, Pat? How did you get on? Do you think you’re going to be all right for tonight’s show?’ she asked, firing one question after another.
I rubbed my back and gently lowered myself down into a kitchen chair, trying to keep my back as straight as I could.
‘It’s not too bad. It’s a little sore but I think I’ll live,’ I said with a grimace.
‘Well, thank goodness for that!’
‘Do you know, the strangest thing just happened at the hospital,’ I said, and I began to tell her all about the Irish doctor who’d refused to treat me for my follow-up appointment.
‘That’s strange,’ she agreed.
‘It is, isn’t it?’
Soon it was time to leave for the theatre, so I forgot about the doctor and the mystery appointment. The final show of the evening was a sell-out, so I was just glad I was fit enough to go on stage at all. I was sitting in the dressing room, putting the final touches to my makeup, when Harry, the stage manager, knocked at the door.
‘Is Pat in?’ he asked.
‘It’s not the Picture Post calling again, is it?’ one of the girls said with a laugh.
Harry shifted awkwardly from one foot to the other. ‘No, no, it’s nothing like that. I’ve got a note for her, that’s all.’
Sheila took the note from Harry’s hand and brought it over to me. I was sat in front of the dressing room mirror when she handed me the envelope.
‘What is it, Pat?’ Hilda asked.
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘Haven’t a clue. Maybe it’s fan mail,’ I joked.
Hilda watched as my expression turned from one of joy to one of complete shock when I tore open the white envelope and read the note inside.
‘Oh, Hilda,’ I gasped, putting a hand against my mouth. ‘It’s from that doctor. You know – the Irish one I saw at the hospital; the one who refused to treat me when I went back this morning.’
‘Is it?’ she gasped, leaning over my shoulder to look. ‘Why? What does it say?’
The others dancers overheard and stopped what they were doing. Soon everyone had crowded around to listen.
‘It says, oh, blimey, I can’t believe it!’ I gasped with my hand still against my mouth.
‘Go on, Pat. Tell us what it says,’ Sheila urged.
I cleared my throat and began to read it aloud: ‘It says: “Your doctor is in to see you dance.”’
I looked up from the note to the others, to try to gauge their reactions. Their faces were a picture.
‘Look,’ I shrieked, pointing at the bottom of the note. ‘He’s even written down his seat number and the row he’s sitting in!’
The note was passed around the dressing room and everyone chatted about it as I decided what to do. We were only minutes from going on but I knew he’d be out there, sitting in the audience and watching my every move.
‘Eh, you can do much worse than ’aving a doctor as a beau,’ Mary chipped in, stubbing out her cigarette in an ashtray.
A few of the girls nodded in agreement. But I wasn’t convinced.
‘I just don’t fancy him, Mary. Besides, don’t you think it’s a bit strange? I mean, he’s seen me undressed!’
A ripple of laughter filtered across the dressing room, but I failed to see the funny side.
‘I could just see you as the next Mrs Dale,’ one girl teased, pouting her mouth and blowing me a kiss.
Mrs Dale was a popular radio programme, where the leading lady was married to a fictional doctor called Dr Jim Dale. Her quip made the whole room erupt with a roar of laughter. I didn’t find it funny; in fact, the whole thing had left me feeling decidedly on edge. Instead of breezing through my dance routine, although I had a smile painted across my face, I spent the rest of the evening plotting my escape.
Moments later, we made our way onto the stage and circled our arms around each other’s waists. A dozen pairs of legs
began to kick high into the air, as a dozen pairs of eyes searched through the footlights into the darkness of the stalls where we knew the doctor would be sitting. Soon I’d worked myself into a bit of a lather because I didn’t want to have to face him at the end of the show. As each routine closed to a round of applause, I realised I was one step closer to coming face-to-face with a man who’d come face-to-face with my bottom! It was only towards the end of the evening that I had a brainwave. In fact, it was such a fantastic idea that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it earlier.
‘I’ve got a plan.’ I whispered to Sheila, although I didn’t have time to tell her what it was.
I was eighteen years old and, like most teenagers, I hadn’t thought my brilliant plan through at all. After the show, I decided I would leave the theatre but I wouldn’t exit by the stage door – I’d use the fire exit, which was situated just inside our dressing room. The only problem was that the theatre was right at the end of the North Pier, which meant it was well out into the sea. But I hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Once we’d taken our final bow, I dashed off stage as fast as my injured back would allow, removed what makeup I could and quickly changed into my own clothes. Without telling a soul, I sneaked through the fire exit. To my dismay, I realised it was surrounded by railings and very little else. With no room to manoeuvre, there was only one thing for it – I’d have to edge along the outside of the pier on the railings. If I thought I’d had a close brush with death when Bert had taken our photo for the Picture Post, it was nothing in comparison to dangling with one leg over the end of the pier and the other over the choppy North Sea, a hundred feet up in the pitch dark!
Clinging to the railings, I carefully pushed myself along, inch by inch, until I was able to plant both feet back on the wooden decking. I dashed away from the theatre and the pier as fast as my bruised posterior would let me.
Unfortunately, the poor doctor remained there, standing at the stage door, awaiting my imminent arrival. I never did show. I stood him up and in quite a style, risking life and limb and my already injured back in the process. But he must have got the hint because, after that, the young doctor never called on me again.
CHAPTER 7