Business as usual

I’ve had a long and pleasurable association with the Royal Academy of Dance; I took my Grade 4 in 1935 but I first started teaching in 1941, during the war.

In Jersey, we were under German occupation but luckily I had just got my Advanced RAD. My family were living in Grouville and at the time a friend of mine had three girls that learned dancing in St Helier but couldn’t get there anymore due to the fact that there was no traffic – no buses, no cars. So they asked me if I’d teach them. I found a little hall and I started out with six girls. By the next week I had about 30 pupils and my career as a dance teacher had begun!

It was very difficult because back then food was always an issue and it was difficult to get into lessons. And you couldn’t get materials or dancing shoes because we were cut off from England. Children used to come in slippers and their parents used to make things from old vests, and tunics out of old sheets, so it was quite an interesting time. I was very lucky as my parents had a shop and they had a lot of crepe paper, so we used that to decorate. And for one finale we had little dresses with red paper around the edges – and they looked quite attractive. You had to be more creative and your imagination had to go a long way in those days.

Kathleen Gordon was the secretary of the Royal Academy at the time, and as soon as the war was over, she sent me a lot of ballet shoes and things to start off, which was really very kind of her. I’ve always appreciated that.

We couldn’t do exams of course – there was nobody to examine them. But we did try to keep things ‘business as usual’ on the island, and I approached teaching in the way my teacher, Noreen Bush, taught me. And the Germans had nothing at all to do with the actual running of the business. We did, however, have to send them the programme or itinerary if we were doing a show for instance. And, at my first show, the German Commandant insisted on coming – we even had to have a special seat for him. When it was all over I was called to Government House – asked to report at 9 o’clock on Monday morning. I was terrified!

I had to cycle there and all the way, thought I was going to be put in jail for having done something I shouldn’t. But all they wanted to do was to congratulate me. The Germans said that they’d never seen anything like it in Germany, with all the children dancing, and they wanted to know all about it. As I came away they even gave me a bottle of something to drink. I was quite relieved!

It was a wonderful time, a hard time, but I was fortunate enough. I lived in the country and the children couldn’t get into town for their lessons so they came to me and it was really lovely. And when the occupation finished I had a really good school, with over 100 pupils, so it wasn’t worth going back to do anything else.

In 1943 I opened my first dance school in St Helier and two years later moved to David Place, where the Jersey Academy of Dancing has remained for more than 60 years.

Valerie Guy
RAD Life Full Member