I may have the details wrong, but seem to remember a recent report suggesting that the teaching of country dancing in schools was evil and should be banned.
Doubtless, I’m recalling the report with rose-tinted glasses on my memory, for I was traumatised by country dancing when a boy and retain an aversion to it.
The horror occurred at primary school when we were all sent to a camp in the countryside. The joint was made up of dormitories in huts and, as I recall, was designed to break us and destroy our characters.
It was a small insight into life at boarding school, and I blessed my luck at having been born into a poor family, while remaining uneasy at Father’s ambition for me to choose chimney sweeping for a career before I grew too large.
For some reason, in the evening at this camp, we were offered a choice of country dancing or whist. I’ve just looked up whist on Wikipedia and am still none the wiser. It appears to involve cards, which I’ve always thought satanic.
However, I’d have taken devil-worship over country dancing any day of the week. Alas, when I said above that we had a choice, I mean the teacher made the choice for us, and repeatedly she chose to send me to country dancing.
In the end, sentenced to yet another evening of prancing torture, I threw a tantrum and got to play whist, about which I recall nothing other than joy that it wasn’t country dancing.
You say: “Why such horror? Country dancing is a harmless activity.” Unhand me, madam. You underestimate the harm done to young minds. For a start, country dancing involved interaction with the other gender, you know, the soppy one.
That joyously deplorable attitude remains with me to this day. As an adult, My usual objection to any dancing is that it’s a pre-mating ritual and, as such, should be conducted in the privacy of one’s own shed.
However, it’s difficult to reconcile country dancing with mating. It is perhaps more the precursor to phoning the Samaritans.
The only activity that comes close to country dancing for horror is accordion-playing. In a career marked by tough assignments, covering an accordion and fiddle festival has to count as one of the worst.
Half way through the evening, I completely lost the will to live and embarrassed myself by falling to my knees and praying for an asteroid or nuclear conflagration to wipe out all human life.
Most people were fine about it when they saw the press pass on my lanyard – apparently, something similar happened every year – and, for my part, I was at least reminded of that wise definition: “A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion but chooses not to.”
Jimmy Cicero, a top Roman, said that no sane man will dance, and that ancient wisdom remains true to this day.
It’s difficult to conceive of anyone enjoying country dancing. When young, we considered it a punishment and, even today, I picture a judge in a black cap declaring: “You will be taken from this court and made to do country dancing for three months.”
Still, it takes all sorts, I suppose. Indeed, it takes two to tango. And therein lies the tragedy.