Page 75 of A Class Act

With a man I’d hoped I’d never again come across in my lifetime. A man so repulsive he’d set your teeth on edge, make your skin crawl. A man old enough to be my father and who, as far as I knew, had left for Thailand over fifteen years ago.

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When I was eight, Mum, at first amused and encouraging, and then rapidly fed up of me constantly under her feet as I danced around the tiny sitting room and attemptedjetésoff the sofa, took me along to the one and only dance class in the village. The teacher, Miss Julia Grenville, had been at it for years and, Mum said, always reminded her of someone called Thelma Mayne who was, apparently, the disabled ballet teacher of some character called Lorna Drake inBuntycomic that Mum had devoured as a child. None of these fictional characters meant anything to me at the time, but it always amused Mum to see Julia Grenville shaking her walking stick in despair at some poor kid in a white tutu whose predilection for Mars bars and fish and chip suppers kept her grounded when Julia insisted she soar.

Little girls, desperate to be the next Darcey Bussell, were introduced to the rudiments of ballet, tap and musical theatre, and every Saturday morning, after we’d walked Jess down to the local hockey club where she was already showing promise both in defence and in goal, Mum would walk with me to Miss Grenville’s Academy of Dance. This was the absolute highlight of my week, where I soon became Miss Grenville’s protégée.

I stayed with Miss Grenville for almost four years because, quite frankly, there was little alternative. One Christmas, Mum, having saved up her family allowance for weeks, had taken Jess and me on the train to a production ofThe Nutcrackerat the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds. We’d gone for pizza first in Pizza Hut, piling our bowls with the complimentary salad, loving the stringy, cheesy pizzas, and then queuing in the rain for what seemed ages before being shown to our seats. It was the first time I’d ever been to the theatre, to a proper professional ballet production, and I was hooked. Mesmerised. At the age of twelve, I knew I was going to make ballet my life. This was at the same time that Miss Grenville had taken Mum aside and told her I had promise and that I should be looking further afield if I was to progress. Had we thought about the Northern Ballet Theatre company in Leeds?

I was too young, Mum insisted, to be going to Leeds on the train by myself, even though Jayden, on one of his visits back home, had done his usual trick of peeling off enough twenties to pay for a few months’ tuition and travel, as well as the required outfits.

Of course, the money soon ran out, buses ran late and trains didn’t run at all, especially when it snowed or there were leaves on the line. After just two months, and with Mum back in hospital for a couple of weeks and Jayden once again forced home to look after Jess and me, that little foray soon came to an end.

Then, fortuitously, Julia Grenville, herself on the point of retirement and moving back to the Midlands from where she’d originally hailed, phoned Mum to tell her that Peter Collinson had returned to his home town of Midhope and his dance and musical theatre academy was up and running and flourishing. Hopefuls were travelling from as far away as Manchester and Leeds, she said, and this was a big opportunity for me.

Who was Peter Collinson? Mum had asked. Julia had apparently tutted crossly at Mum’s ignorance about the man who’d danced with Moving States,for heaven’s sake,one of the most innovative dance companies in the UK, up there with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures dance company. He had disappeared from the limelight for several years, working in South Africa, where she’d read he’d orchestrated a career move from ballet to more contemporary dance. She didn’t know the full story, she’d explained to Mum, but the main thing was that he was back, and this was my big opportunity to go further.

Mum, who still hadn’t passed her driving test, accompanied me on the bus the very next Saturday morning, walking us from the bus station to Imperial Chambers in the town’s Victoria Gardens where the new and impressive studios were waiting. Mum had a long chat with a couple of minions, enrolled me into both a Saturday morning and a Wednesday evening session, handed over some of Jayden’s ubiquitous twenties and then took herself off for a coffee, leaving me to it.

The classes were great, taken by several young, talented, and, through my twelve-year-old stargazer’s eyes, incredibly trendy teachers. I know now they were more than likely frustrated performers themselves, paying the bills by teaching until their big break came. If it ever did. No spent and aging former ballet dancers with walking sticks inthesestudios, then.

I didn’t know who Peter Collinson actually was. For several weeks he was simply the huge blown-up photograph of a young man executing an amazing leap in a production ofDesdemonathat had apparently won every accolade going in the late seventies. This had been hung for all to see in the tiny reception area, above a blue velvet sofa and adjacent to the door leading to the one lavatory. And then, one Wednesday evening, I looked up from the session at the barre taken by Danny, to see a middle-aged man, arms folded, watching at the door. He was probablythere to check that Danny was teaching to his exacting standards (aren’t all dance teachers sticklers?) because Danny himself was obviously nervous, beads of sweat appearing on his forehead and darkening the armpits of his white top.

I still didn’t realise who he was because this man, scowling at the door, was middle-aged so I assumed he was one of the students’ fathers.

‘No, no, no!’ the man shouted, leaving the doorpost and walking determinedly to the front of the class and facing the barre. ‘Thisis arond de jambe!Thisis abattement degages,’ and, pushing poor, mortified Danny to one side, he took over the lesson himself. He was good, I’ll give him that, but as an ex professional ballet dancer with one of the UK’s top dance companies he should be. I think he taught me more that lesson than I’d ever learned in the four years with Miss Grenville, never letting up, pushing the ten of us in the session until I was almost weeping with frustration and fatigue.

Poor Dannywasweeping at the meting out of such wrath on his head by Peter Collinson, and it took him quite a while to regain the confidence needed to take up the class once more after Peter had sailed out.

I adored these sessions, particularly when Peter Collinson deigned to take a whole class himself. I was learning so much, would practise and practise at the studio and in the gym at school now that I was at Beddingfield High, determined to be the best.

One Wednesday evening, I’d changed into my usual leotard, tights and ballet pumps and was making my way along the corridor to the smallest of the studios. I was taking a contemporary dance class with Greg, who had, it was rumoured, once taken the role of Mr Mistoffelees inCatson Broadway. I loved his sessions and was beginning to think I might actually prefer contemporary dance to the classical ballet I’d alwaysrevered. Greg, though, had auditioned for and been given a part in some new West End show and, without a by your leave, had upped sticks, leaving Peter in the lurch.

Peter was already waiting to take the session and was soon putting the twelve of us through another of his gruelling training classes. On my way out, he waylaid me, placing a hand under my chin, moving my face from side to side as he scrutinised every angle of my features.

‘You’ll do well,’ he finally said, a hand now on my shoulder. ‘We’ll make a star out of you.’

My twelve-year-old self glowed with pleasure and embarrassment as, scarlet-faced, I ran off to change and meet Jess who, at fourteen had been sent, complaining, down on the bus to meet me and bring me home.

Most sessions from then on involved Peter either singling me out for a chat, for a little extra tuition on a particular step or – and difficult for a young starry-eyed adolescent to understand – him totally ignoring me. Every time he blanked me – ghosted me, I suppose you’d call it these days – I knew I must be rubbish; I would never make the big time. But on the occasions he smiled down at me, took me through a short routine after class and laid a fatherly hand on my shoulder, around my waist, I knew I must be special. I was going to be famous. Peter had said so.

When, after he’d given me a fifteen-minute solo instruction on how to execute my very firstjetéand, desperate to please, I’d passed with flying colours, Peter had smiled. Then he’d put his arms around me, held me in front of him, his front pressing into my back with what appeared to be something hard and strange. I was twelve and a half, tall for my age, very thin and only just beginning to develop breasts, for which I was sometimes taunted by the other kids at school. The boys weren’t averse to calling me ironing board, but I was also dissed by some of the girls who were already filling bras with 36C chests to be proud of. Ihad no brothers or male cousins, and a more-absent-than-not father, so understood little about the male species. I was a total innocent, ripe for the plucking by the paedophile sex pest that Peter Collinson turned out to be.

A week or so after this strange hugging incident, Mum was once again rushed into hospital, and Jayden, who was touring Australia and New Zealand, was uncontactable. At fifteen, Jess was allowed to stay with her best mate’s parents, sharing Isabelle’s bedroom and sleeping on a put-up bed. However much I pleaded to be allowed to go there too, there was simply no room for me and, once again, I was placed in the temporary care of the local authority. Jean and Brian, the elderly couple I went to stay with, were absolutely lovely and more than happy to drive me to my dance classes twice a week. But Peter must have got wind of what was happening because he told Jean, when she dropped me off, that he was happy to give me a lift back to their house, save her a trip coming back out in the rain.

On the drive back to Jean and Brian’s place, Peter stopped the car down a quiet country lane and proceeded to tell me that if I wanted to make dance my future, he’d help me get there. I was special, he said, and he’d chosen me to work withbecauseI was so special. I had all the makings of as big a name as Ruthie Henshall or even Elaine Paige. I’d never even heard of Elaine Paige, but Ruthie Henshall was my hero after Jayden had found me DVDs of her as Roxie Hart in London’s revival ofChicago, as well as making her debut of Velma Kelly in the Broadway production of the same show.

‘You’ll have to practise until you’re ready to drop,’ Peter told me, stroking my arm in the dark. ‘And you’ll have to exercise, stretching your body to the limit.’ At that juncture, he’d moved his hand to my bare leg, lifting, pulling and stretching as he explained the leg exercises I must commit to every day. Even though I was uneasy, unsure why he should be touching my leg,I nodded in agreement, wanting to get back to Jean and Brian’s but unwilling to offend this man when he was being so positive about making me into a star.

‘I think I’d better get back now, Mr Collinson,’ I said, shifting my leg from his grasp and inching myself away from him as best I could. ‘Jean’ll be worried, and I don’t want her ringing the police.’

‘The police?’ Peter laughed at that, but the word was obviously enough to break the spell and he turned away irritably, put the car into gear and drove to my foster parents’ house.

I might have been only twelve, but I wasn’t daft. I knew Peter Collinson was acting in a way he shouldn’t. That if I’d told Mum or Jayden or even Jess – particularly Jess – any one of them would have had me out of that academy and reporting his behaviour to the police. But I didn’t want that: I wanted to dance; I wanted to be in musical theatre. I wanted Peter’s help. When the following Saturday came round and Jean said she’d pick me up after class and take me into the town centre to buy the new school tie to replace the one I’d lost the previous week in Midhope, I felt a sense of relief. Peter wouldn’t be driving me home in the dark, and nothing could happen in daylight with others around.

How wrong can a kid be? When the class taken by Cherie came to its conclusion ten minutes early and she rushed off saying she had a train to catch to London, I gathered my things and went to wait in Reception for Jean to pick me up. As, one by one, the rest of the kids made their way out, I wandered to the window to watch for Jean. She was late and I was last man standing.

Peter appeared at my side, telling me he had some forms I needed to sign to audition for an upcoming production ofOliver!in Leeds.

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