In late 1989, our daughter, just three, began ballet with the Star School of Dancing at Kingham Hall, then on the corner of St Johns Road and St Albans Road. The school’s previous location was at 66/68a High Street.
Founded by Elizabeth Harrison, it was taken over in 1994 by former pupil Margaret Howard. Margaret also took over Harrison College, merging both with the Bushey School of Dance & Drama which she formed in 1983. Now known as the Margaret Howard Theatre Schools, its base is in Bushey Mill Lane.
Our daughter moved on to Scottish Highland dancing over a year later with the Debbie Cooper School of Scottish Dancing and performed with others at competitions and events across the country, from Chatsworth House to the Oxhey Environment Group Summer Fayre and Croxley Revels.
At 12, she learnt salsa at the Paul Alex School of Dancing in Nascot Road. So, after years of ferrying her to the different genres, here I am writing about dancing in Watford’s past!
Probably the best-known early Watford dance school was the West Herts School of Dancing. Established in 1923, it operated from spacious premises at 14 The Parade, alongside the West Herts Music School run by Miss Marianne Radford LRAM next door at 14A. It offered operatic, ballet, classical and ballroom dancing in a ‘well appointed’ studio and taught across the age range, from very small children who were carefully graded according to their age and ability, to adults who ‘would have declared their dancing days over’.
Pupils were prepared for the Operatic Association and Imperial Society’s Examinations and those who wished to enter the profession were assured of sound training.
Miss Elsie Christmas, member of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing, directed the school and was assisted by Miss Doris Webb. The staff were London trained and had extensive dance experience. Their aim was ‘to teach poise, balance and correct movement, as well as the latest steps’. After only six years, the numbers of pupils in the children’s classes alone – which were also held in Chorleywood, Radlett and Standon – had risen to 140.
By 1931, the West Herts School of Dancing had moved to Oakley Lodge, at 53 Clarendon Road; a further indicator of its growing success. Here, the ‘beautifully appointed’ studio with an impressive ballroom opened onto a spacious lawn and, in summer, pupils enjoyed the added benefits of exercising in the open air. The enterprising school also introduced ‘adult health classes’, bringing rhythmic exercise into the curriculum.
In 1949, Elsie Christmas was advertising Modern, Old Time, Latin American and Stage Dancing at Oakley Studios, 55 Clarendon Road. Somewhere, as you’ll read, that I remember well.
Also in the 1920s, The Russwurm School of Dancing was based at Arleedon, 16 Bushey Grove Road. Miss Molly Russwurm had been a pupil of the well-respected Felix Demery, co-author of First Steps in Ballet, who was to become the first Royal Academy of Dance examiner to visit Australia and New Zealand in 1935 and 1936 respectively. She was a member of the Association of Operatic Dancing, the British Ballet Organisation and the Operatic Dancing Teachers’ Society.
Together with her sister Ann, Molly gave private lessons and held classes in all branches of dancing, including operatic, character, national, classical, group and ballroom dancing. In the latter, style and rhythm received special attention. Ann possessed a gold medal for eccentric dance. She taught musical comedy and directed classes on tap-on-toe and buck dancing (solo step dance to fiddle music). Impressively, the school held a record of 100 per cent successes and pupils achieved many honours certificates. The school also promoted ‘physical culture’ and provided ‘strengthening exercises’ for delicate children, ‘very beneficial for weak spines, ankles, knees, hips and stooping shoulders’. Promising pupils were trained for the profession and given first choice when staff vacancies arose.
By 1960, Oakley Studios was owned by dance teacher Stan Ross and his wife Vi. At that time, my father was looking for a suitable site for a new venture, prompted by his love of trad jazz. Stan Ross agreed to offer the studio for Sunday night jazz sessions and so the popular Kings Jazz Club came into being. At the same time, my father suggested that I could learn ballroom dancing.
Stan Ross was brilliant and helped a shy teenager gain confidence with bronze and silver ballroom dancing medals at 13 and 14 with the waltz, foxtrot, quickstep and tango. I would have continued but, all too soon, Stan and Vi retired to the south coast.
My father’s Kings Jazz Club, which in the early 1960s drew trad jazz enthusiasts from across the area to Oakley Studios every Sunday evening, had to move on.
The first floor of The Compasses, on the High Street and Market Street corner, was to become its next home. But more about the jazz club another time.
With thanks to Margaret Howard, enquiries@margarethoward.co.uk
- Lesley Dunlop is the daughter of the late Ted Parrish, a well-known local historian and documentary filmmaker. He wrote 96 nostalgic articles for the ‘Evening Post-Echo’ in 1982-83 which have since been published in ‘Echoes of Old Watford, Bushey & Oxhey’, available at www.pastdayspublishing.com and Bushey Museum. Lesley is currently working on ‘Two Lives, Two World Wars’, a companion volume that explores her father’s and grandfather’s lives and war experiences, in which Watford, Bushey and Oxhey’s history will take to the stage once again.
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