The Forgotten Highlander - Alistair Urquhart [27]
Tommy was fussing and telling me just to go out and enjoy it. He helped put a number six on my back as we sussed out the competition. The Chinese were dressed in tails, while the Navy, Army and Air Force all had representatives. The dances were waltz, slow fox-trot, quickstep, tango and Viennese waltz.
I said to Tommy, ‘It’s a foregone conclusion. A Chinese couple will win it.’
‘Nonsense,’ he said. He handed me a whisky on the rocks to tame my nerves, which were beginning to spiral out of control. I couldn’t get on the floor quick enough when the first dance was called. Nita and I took the floor with another twenty couples.
Once the music started we danced well and Tommy, who had a very loud voice, started shouting, ‘C’mon number six! Go number six!’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tommy recruiting more cheerleaders and he soon had a whole gang of people chanting for ‘number six’.
Things were going well, especially in the slow fox-trot and the tango. Between dances Tommy kept saying, ‘You’ve only got the Navy chap to worry about but I think you’re well on top.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Absolutely. Keep your head. Nita is doing great, you two haven’t made a single mistake.’
After a final faultless dance Nita and I, number six, were adjudged the winners. For our efforts we were presented with a small cup and a ‘Big Ben’ Westminster Chime metal clock.
We were popular winners and I think my pal’s cheerleading experience learned in Blackpool got the judges thinking ‘number six’, whether consciously or subconsciously.
The manager of the Happy World came to our table with a bottle of bubbly and brought Nita to join us for the rest of the evening. Lots of people came over to congratulate us and I felt quite the celebrity. When things quietened down a very well-dressed Chinese gentleman approached our table and asked if he could join us as he had a proposition for me.
‘Pull up a seat, sir,’ said Tommy quickly.
The Chinese gent asked if I would go along to his studio to give some lessons on how to dance smoothly. Tommy thought it was a great idea and practically decided on my behalf. So it was all arranged for Sunday afternoon and I launched into a new and all too brief career teaching the ‘dancing girls’ of Singapore how to fox-trot. They came and collected me at the fort gates and took me back after the classes. It was perfect.
Teaching dance without a grasp of Chinese was every bit as difficult as it sounds. I suggested that I demonstrate with one of the girls so that the permanent teacher could understand what I was trying to impart. So it was back to basics for the class. They learned steps from the teacher, who was using a Victor Silvester book on dancing but had not grasped the basics of ballroom dancing himself. Each class was based on balance, posture and walking through the steps. Initially I spent time working with the men because they are to be the leaders and I explained that all dances came from the hips. Then with the ladies I explained how to avoid getting their toes trodden on.
A few weeks later they were progressing well enough to introduce some variations to the basic steps. The Chinese were very good at learning and had supple bodies. Suffice to say that a few really good, smooth dancers emerged from the class and most of them went on after the class to the New World dance hall, where I met up with Tommy who benefited from all this by getting free dances for the afternoon, as the teacher paid for the girls’ tickets.
As I approached my second Christmas in the tropics, the band was playing on in Singapore but the new Japanese government, headed by the war-mongering Prime Minister Tojo, was keen to call a different tune. By now Britain was fighting for its survival in Europe and the Japanese could act to seize Malaya and half of the world’s rubber and most of its tin in one fell swoop. Tommy, a corporal in the signals department, kept me in the picture about the latest developments and Japanese movements. It had been obvious for some time that things were hotting up. Reinforcements were arriving from