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This story was submitted to the People's War site by Eileen Linder on behalf of Gill McDermott, and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions
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I want to tell you about the British Restaurant and a crowd of unattached wrens including, to my surprise, me, going down to this rather un-distinguished building on a moonless night. It was sixpence to get into what turned out to be a hot smelly badly lit dancehall. And a lot of sailors when I got there were dancing with a lot of Wrens in various amorous clinches. We all went into the ‘heads’ - the ‘heads’ were the lavatories to comb our windblown hair and apply another layer of lipstick and then we went and sat on a bench. The station band was playing ‘begin the begin’ pretty well I thought, but then I hadn’t any experience of bands except on the wireless. In no time at all all the girls had been whisked away by sailors of various ranks, except me.

I sat through ‘how much is that doggy in the window’, the ‘white cliffs of Dover’ the Siegfred Line’ and then I gave up looking brave. I rushed out to the ‘heads’ slammed the door shut, sat on the cold white lavatory seat crying like a baby. I heard the band coming to a rousing conclusion of ‘horsey horsey’ signally the end of the first half of the dance. Then came a rush of feet, several girls banged on my door and all the other facilities seemed to be working full time. Taps were turned on, gossip was exchanged, the wayward behaviour of a certain red head Petty Officer from the PO’s mess was discussed at length. I couldn’t believe what I heard. And indeed it was so incredible that I forgot to cry.

The band started and all the people who had run in 15 minutes ago now ran out. So splashing my face with cold water and applying a coat of pale powder to disguise my red-eyes, thus doing a little repair work on my makeup I gather up a little courage and went out to the hall and took up my position on the bench.

I had hardly sat down before a waver-think 7 foot tall bearded seaman stood — no not stood — he was paraletically drunk and could not stand, rather he lurched up to me, saying a few undecipherable words ending with dance. And he yanked me to my feet by putting an arm tightly around my waist. My feet were about 12 inches of the ground, and he looked blearily into my eyes, singing tunelessly. After one erratic turn of the floor he came to a standstill at the bottom of the steps leading to the stage, dropping me unceremoniously as he went up on hands and knees. A position I felt was one for which he was quite accustomed. We reached the conductors podium and he began to conduct in a sort of way helped on by cat calls and whistles from the crowd.

The bandleader looked round for help. Four burly naval police pushed their way through the crowd, went up the steps in about 2 seconds and picked him up, which by now presented no problem since he was passed out. The police carried him like an old carpet over the head of the crowd, through the double doors, and I was told later into one of the naval police vans which had been waiting for just such a person as my erstwhile chum.

I decided to walk back to my quarters and to pot with the dance. It was about half a mile. It was the first dance I had ever been to. And nobody else to dance with but a drunk. And with no moon it was as black as a boot, but in those days muggings were unknown and I had never been warned about rape since something of that sort must have been common in the era of those thoroughly nasty Greek tragedies. However, I felt no fear of the dark and what it might conceal.

I was glad to get back and slide into bed with a book. The others came in a good deal later with much pianism and giggling and snorting, presumably as they compared their luck. But I couldn’t help wondering why only one very drunken sailor fancied me. What hadn’t I got that the others had.

But every Friday night we went to these dances. And we could go if we were off duty, sometimes we were on night duty and sometimes day duty. We did naval watches the same as men.

So we went when we could.yes, it was really my main recreation and of course I had never been to a dance before. And when Elizabeth said to me are you going to the dance tonight, I said nobody’s asked me. She said you don’t have to be asked, you just go. I said what if you don’t know anybody. Oh never worry, you will find yourself a fellow down there.It was all very easy.

There were waltzes and quicksteps, all the ones that they are now starting to do again.And the girls usually had been to dancing classes when they were young.

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