Pauline Prescott - Smile Though Your Heart Is Breaking

We never went to church as a family so every Sunday Dad would switch on the wireless to listen to a pianist called Charlie Kunz who played Gershwin, Fats Waller, and Cole Porter songs. The carpet would be rolled back and Dad and I used to tap dance or waltz across the living-room floor, laughing all the while. Dad loved to dance and would copy all the steps he’d seen at the pictures. I inherited that passion and his love for swing music. His favourite song was ‘Ain’t Misbehavin” and even now when I hear it, it makes me smile:

I know for certain the one I love; I’m through with flirtin’, it’s just you I’m thinkin’ of. Ain’t misbehavin’, I’m saving my love for you.

My brother preferred modern jazz, which he’d play in his bedroom. Listening to those songs drifting through the walls, I soon fell for artists like Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck and the MJQ or Modern Jazz Quartet. I remember loving one song in particular by the Tommy Dorsey band which was called ‘A Sinner Kissed an Angel’. For my birthday, Peter would buy me Ella Fitzgerald or Sarah Vaughan records. Being nearly two years older than me, Peter had his own friends and I was often just the kid sister who got in the way. It wasn’t until we were grown up that we became much closer and now we’re the best of pals.

Since I didn’t have a sister to play with, my closest companion was Joyce Ashford, who lived in the same street. She and I used to put on dance and puppet shows in her garage. Her younger sister Barbara sometimes joined in, but she once spied on us rehearsing and put on her own version of our show before we could. I don’t think we ever quite forgave her.

I never felt poor but in comparison with our family Joyce and Barbara were definitely better off. Joyce’s father was a bookie who owned a car, a television and a garage, none of which we possessed. My dad only had a bike and we all used the buses. If ever I wanted to see something on television, I’d go round to Joyce’s after school. We loved Muffin the Mule and watched all the important public events, including the Coronation in 1953. I remember holding my breath as the glittering crown was placed so solemnly on the Queen’s head and thinking how incredible it would be to meet her one day. Aged fourteen, I never thought my wish might come true.

A tall, skinny kid, all I wanted was to be a television ‘Topper’ when I grew up: dancing in a troupe of glamorous girls in support of a main act. I couldn’t think of a finer job than to be paid to dance. A proud member of Miss Eve’s Morris Dancing Team, by my early teens I was touring all over the Midlands, Wales and the North to compete in regional finals. Mum would travel with me on the bus and we had such fun getting me into my costume each time, with its little skirt and frilly knickers. At Christmas, I’d put on my ‘Fred and Ginger’ outfit for the family (I was always Fred, in a top hat) and do a little routine bursting balloons with high kicks and the splits as Mum, Dad and Peter all laughed. I have such carefree memories of those years.

I was thrilled when my parents found the money to send me to the Hammond School of Dance on the Liverpool Road, which was the best in the North of England. There was a price to pay, though. When Peter was given a new bicycle one year I was told I couldn’t have one as well as my classes. I didn’t mind. As far as I was concerned, I had the better deal.

I loved school and there were several subjects I was good at, especially drama. I even played the Virgin Mary in the school nativity play. Having a vivid imagination, I was also good at English and would make up little stories in my head. Because of my dancing, I was sporty and my long legs were ideal for running and the high jump. I was always in the middle of my class academically, and only ever came top in needlework and cookery so I guess I was destined to be a housewife. It wasn’t that I was thick, I just didn’t apply myself. When I failed my eleven plus, which meant I couldn’t go to the City High School in Handbridge with my friend Joyce, I was devastated. For the first time I felt the stigma of being labelled ‘stupid’, something my brother (who’d passed his eleven plus the previous year) took great delight in rubbing in whenever he could.

I was sent to Love Street secondary modern school instead, where my party trick was to do handstands against the wall with my skirt tucked into my knickers. I threw myself into athletics until I was made sports captain and finally felt I’d achieved something. Then, when the rest of my class voted me house captain I decided that I should try harder to live up to the little badge I proudly wore on my lapel, and – with a little application—I came second in the class that year.

Coming home on the bus with all the posh girls from Queen’s School and City High, I was painfully aware that my differently coloured uniform defined me as ‘not one of them’, so I did all I could to blend in. I’d slip off my navy-blue blazer and try not to draw attention to myself. One day, I watched in horror as my father stepped on to the bus in his overalls, his haversack slung over his shoulder. I was sitting halfway down and shrank into my seat. Dad didn’t see me so he sat right at the back, legs apart as always, chatting and laughing with everyone around him in that real working-class Cheshire way of speaking that he had. To my eternal shame, I can remember thinking, Please, don’t embarrass me! I still hate myself for that, because the one thing I can’t stand is snobbery.

I was thirteen years old when my father began to complain of feeling unwell. He had a bad back and other ailments and used to take all sorts of herbal remedies when the medicines the doctor prescribed didn’t work. Unusually, he took time off work but he never seemed to improve, even with bed rest. I think, like us, he assumed that an aching back was something that went with his job. After a year of pain which nothing seemed to ease, he discovered a lump on his neck. Mum, who’d taken on extra cleaning to make ends meet by then, told us a few days later that Dad would need an operation to remove it.

‘First of all, though,’ she said, ‘we’re going on holiday!’

I couldn’t believe it. We were to spend a week at the Middleton Tower Holiday Camp near Morecambe, Lancashire. Dad was to be admitted for surgery soon after we got back but I didn’t worry about his operation in the slightest. All I could think about was our impending break, which was the first proper holiday we’d ever had. The camp was like nothing I had ever seen. Set in sixty acres with nine hundred chalets, its dining rooms and cafeterias could feed three thousand people. The main building, which had a theatre and a dance floor, was modelled on a Cunard cruise ship called the SS Berengaria. We were joined by my mum’s mother Ada – or ‘Nanny’ as I called her, who was a traditional cuddly grandmother from Ellesmere Port. Then there was Aunt Bessie, who brought her daughters, my cousins, Barbara, Linda and Janet. My brother Peter, who was sixteen, brought along a couple of friends.

Even though my father wasn’t very well he still drew people to him and he and my mother were so lovely on that holiday – like newlyweds. They danced together most nights and I can remember watching them on the dance floor and feeling a little jealous. Later, my lovely dad made sure to dance just with me. Best of all, he won a bingo prize of sixty pounds which more than paid for the holiday. He was so happy.

Soon after we came home, Dad was admitted to Chester City Hospital where he was expected to stay for two weeks. We were planning to visit him one night after school but Mum said there had been a complication and that he needed peace and quiet. ‘He’ll be home soon,’ she told us, sensing our disappointment. I couldn’t wait. The house felt so empty without his laughing presence.