Dancing To An Old Tune Poem by Keith Shorrocks Johnson

[With the Cheshire Young Farmers 1962]

And there I used to be, waiting
In the kitchen close to the coal fire range
Having put on my baggy hand-me-down
Dinner jacket and black ribbon-seamed trousers
And my creased dancing pumps
Ready to brave the winter evening
With my grandfather’s white silk scarf

To join our neighbour’s son
For a trip in his old sports car
To Tattenhall or Sandbach
Or the Civic Hall, Nantwich.
Then the air was oh so crisp -
And the stars were so very bright
Another perfect longed for night.

My God, could there be anything
More exciting than getting out
And away from the dark fields
And having some pints of mild
In The Lamb or the Wilbraham Arms
And smoking Player’s Navy Cut
Or Craven A and standing there

In the urinal like a man already
Shaking off the excess alcohol
Next to the Durex dispenser
And getting ready to gather up
After some coarse comments
To roam the streets together
For a Young Farmers’ Dance -

We would always arrive late
And stand at the back of the room
Like reluctant stock edging the pen.
The pretty girls would already be dancing
Their cards marked for the evening
But some of the plainer girls
Or those in ill-fitting dresses

Cut from their mother’s or sister’s cloth
Would look longingly for attention
Framed by perms, smiling hesitantly
So we would survey the scene
And settle for a bottle of brown ale -
Heaven enough to be with friends
Have choices and side-step the Fox Trot.