Tales of a Tiller Girl

Tales of a Tiller Girl
Irene Holland

A heart-warming nostalgia memoir from a member of the world famous dance troupe, The Tiller Girls. Based in London in the 1930s, 40s and 50s, Irene’s story will transport readers back to a more innocent, simple way of life.This is the story of a little girl who loved to dance. Growing up in London in the 1930s, dancing was so much more to Irene than just a hobby. It was her escape and it took her off into another world away from the harsh realities of life. A fairytale world away from the horrors of WW2, from the grief of losing her father and missing her mother who she didn’t see for three years while she was drafted to help with the war effort. And far away from her cold-hearted grandparents who treated her like an inconvenience.Finally it led to her winning a place as a Tiller Girl; the world’s most famous dance troupe known for their 32-and-a-half high kicks a minute and precise, symmetrical routines. For four years she opened and closed the show at the prestigious London Palladium and performed on stage alongside huge stars such as Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Judy Garland.It was a strange mixture of glamour and bloody hard work but it was certainly never dull. And being a Tiller Girl also gave Irene the opportunity to see firsthand the devastating effects of WW2, both here and abroad.Heart-warming, enlightening and wonderfully uplifting, Irene’s evocative story will transport readers back to a time when every town and holiday resort had several theatres and when dance troupes like The Tiller Girls were the epitome of glitz and glamour.

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For my lovely mum Kitty, who inspired me to achieve my dream.

And to my children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, in the hope that you all find your passion in life, as I have in dancing.

Contents

Cover (#u02ce837d-352c-57a6-89bf-083e57d78d27)

Title Page (#uc2ff5d5b-5a5e-593e-9fe7-fd2c03e89bf0)

Dedication (#ulink_e4d841be-d458-543a-8c8d-83bcaf4bdde0)

1. On Our Own (#ulink_fa51d34d-548b-5a27-9650-5e349a8f1fe4)

2. Bows and Bombs (#ulink_3c33f68f-c9eb-5ce5-b671-7a351464d8f9)

3. Painful Goodbyes (#ulink_fe45b43b-9498-5860-b840-0b2ab01a1a78)

4. Fairyland (#ulink_b89a0f8e-9740-537a-8956-bb2ade5f5b32)

5. Ballet in the Blitz (#ulink_de58f47a-cf36-5386-bd0a-718f4dfd4cdf)

6. Treading the Boards (#litres_trial_promo)

7. Briefly a Bluebell (#litres_trial_promo)

8. Trying Out (#litres_trial_promo)

9. Bright Lights (#litres_trial_promo)

10. Sisterhood (#litres_trial_promo)

11. Dancing with the Stars (#litres_trial_promo)

12. Disaster Strikes (#litres_trial_promo)

13. Making Mum Proud (#litres_trial_promo)

14. War Wounds (#litres_trial_promo)

15. Horror and High Tea (#litres_trial_promo)

16. Man Trouble (#litres_trial_promo)

17. The Final Curtain (#litres_trial_promo)

18. New Beginnings (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo)

Exclusive sample chapters (#litres_trial_promo)

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter (#litres_trial_promo)

Write for Us (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

1

On Our Own (#ucf85a87b-15fc-5e65-a592-3053463e4282)

The little girl walked down the hospital ward tightly clutching her mother’s hand. Nurses bustled up and down in their starched white uniforms and capes, and the smell of carbolic soap was overpowering. Finally they got to a bed at the end, which had the curtains drawn around it for privacy.

‘Come here, dear,’ said one of the nurses, lifting up the girl and sitting her on the bed so that she had a better view of the man lying in it.

He looked very thin and frail, and he had a nasty, hacking cough. Her mother passed the man a handkerchief, and as he patted his mouth the girl noticed bright red spots of blood splattered all over the white material.

Although just two years old, the child knew instinctively that it was serious. Maybe it was her mother’s tears that gave it away or the pale, gaunt face of the man lying in the bed. Every breath he took was so laboured and shallow and seemed to require so much effort that it almost sounded like his last.

‘Poor Daddy,’ she sighed.

You see, that little girl was me, and that was my first, last and only memory of my father, Edwin Bott.

I was born in 1930 in a nursing home on the edge of Wandsworth Common in south-west London. My brother, Raymond, was eleven years older than me and, like a lot of children, I think I was what you’d call a bit of a mistake! I was from a very musical background – my father was a cellist and my mother, Kitty, was a professional violinist. They had met in the orchestra pit while they were playing music for the silent films when Mum was seventeen and my dad was seven years older. When they first got married they lived in Oxford, and that’s where my brother was born, but then they moved up to London to play in the theatre orchestras. My father also used to play in a quartet on banana boats that would take passengers to Rio de Janeiro and bring bananas back. He would be away for weeks at a time, and the bananas he was given by the crew would be completely rotten by the time he got back home to London.

My name was Irene but everyone called me Rene. I was named after my father’s half-sister Rene Gibbons. She was a Goldwyn Girl, part of a glamorous company of female dancers employed by the famous Hollywood producer Samuel Goldwyn in the Twenties and Thirties to perform in his films and musicals. Many female stars got their big break in his troupes, including Lucille Ball and Betty Grable. Although I’d never met her, I’d seen from a photograph she once sent us that Rene was an incredibly beautiful woman. She looked like something from a Pre-Raphaelite painting, with her long auburn hair and huge green eyes. Unfortunately she and Mum never got along, I suspect probably due to a little bit of jealousy on my mother’s part, although she never really told me why.

‘I wanted to call you Violet,’ Mum used to say to me as I was growing up. ‘But your sneaky father went off to the town hall one day and registered your birth without me knowing.

‘When he came back and I saw the name Irene on your birth certificate there were a few fireworks, let me tell you.’

I could well imagine. My mother was only tiny but she had a sparky temper, that was for sure.

Sadly I was too young to remember Dad, apart from that one time when I had visited him in hospital. I was only two when he died of tuberculosis at the age of thirty-three. He had terrible asthma, so I think it affected him very quickly. It must have been horrible for my mother and Raymond to see him in so much pain as his lungs disintegrated and he constantly coughed up blood. There was no cure in those days and it was highly infectious. My brother and I were tested for it, but thankfully we were clear.