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Coronation Year Skills Edmund Hillary and co. were back from ‘conquering Everest’ - all New Zealand glowed with pride, wanting to hear him - and we did. The whole school attended the event - other schools were there in force. He was mild, soft-spoken - one of us, also athletic and determined. He praised the Sherpas, as we would have done. It pleased him that the Brits had run the show, choosing him for his climbing skill, He’d knocked it off in Coronation Year! That topped it off; the same year that began my life in ballroom dancing, practicing the new ‘Queen Elizabeth Waltz’. Cousin Marie, my age, said: ‘Join! it’s cheap, it’s Friday night. I and my friends will ease you in.’ John from my class was in already, the walk was short from his place to the back-garden dance-shed of our instructor. We went together. Oh, the pain! dressed in new ‘strides’, stiff shirts, hair Brylcreemed down. John it suited, his black shoes shone. Biking to his place I was in a sweat, worse now in the bright-lit room thronged with girls in skirts and blouses, and smart shining hair - their feet I knew I’d tread on, red-faced. Don’t look down, smile! listen and respond! And learn the foxtrot and the waltz! All much too hard. Marie helped, her friends had been alerted. Others made me freeze, falter and stumble. The gramophone was old, our teacher’s records scratched, except the new one: da-da da-da da-di-da - the Queen Elizabeth Waltz. All winter we practiced. Round and round, skirts swirled, dizzying. She’d have been proud, Her Majesty. Others may have got to some ball and done it to live music - I’d be on my bike skulking elsewhere. Once only there was a school dance. Thank you, dear old cousin, for kind attendance with your friends. Next year - was it? - waltzing was eclipsed - Hillary’s country! - swept out everywhere. Rock and roll - American - swung in there.