A few teachers retired at the end of last term. So last night we held a ceilidh in our annex to mark the event. I'm a sucker for a nice dance so I had been looking forwards to this hugely. Rightly so it turned out. It was one of the funnest nights I have in ages and although I haven't talked to anyone who was there sober I think that everyone else enjoyed themselves too.
Some background...
I'm not sure how normal my experience is; it could be Scotland-wide, an Edinburgh thing or something that just doesn't happen any more but my generation were all taught Scottish country-dancing. It started a couple of months in to our primary seven year [we were 10/11/12, I was 10 everyone else was older.] We were taken, about three times a week for dancing teaching. We had to pick our partners which made the whole thing sexually charged.
The dance itself was called the qually, which was short for qualification dance [those who'd passed their 11-plus (an exam to get into a better high-school), a thing long since gone] but we didn't know that until much later. It was the primary school prom I suppose but it wasn't called that and the focus was on the dancing rather than the people-look-how-rich-my-parents-are and a parrot spectacle-of-kids. So most people my age know a wee bit about dancing.
I was a primary school janny for many years and I've attended many quallies. And quallies are strange beasts for adults; dancing with wee kids on the work's Christmas night out. Work-madness-release mixed with duty. You're in a weird place. Still, my love of a nice dance, where you aren't on duty, with your workmates, is pretty strong. And doesn't happen often.
Dancing worries people; I had a couple of conversations last week with people who seemed a wee bit chary of the event. I tried to reassure them.
"What's not to love? We'll meet old friends, the girls will look lovely and we can tell them that they are looking lovely, there will be dancing and drinking", I claimed. I was right to claim so, in my case at least.
The dancing was indescribably awful [the band made a point of mentioning the flaws in my technique] but as we threw ourselves around in a manner that must have seemed impious to the Terpsichorean muse we were laughing so hard and enjoying ourselves so much that I don't think anyone much cared about herself.
It was a night many years in the making, I was in a room having fun with people who I've shared my soul with for thirty years. Which made me share my soul with, yet another, generation of teachers.
I walked home, about two in the am, with a smile on my face that might have damaged my skin.