Dancing feet

Standing in a queue - we British are so good at it we have turned it into an art form - I listened to the piped music wafting vaguely around my head from hidden speakers. As the tune changed, I recognised the new one immediately, and my mind left the queue far behind, travelling back through the years, and the subcutaneous layers, to the stage.

Yes, dear reader, I was once lithe and nimble enough to grace a stage and play to an audience. Behave yourself! This was long before lap dancing. A keen member of amateur dramatics, I've played a variety of parts, most of them involving a Yorkshire accent. Incidentally, I don't have a Yorkshire accent, I'm from a part of England between the Tyne and the Tees that has more to do with monkeys than Geordies. I played the Yorkshire person because my accent was probably the nearest the am dram society could get at the time. And I was jolly good too, in my own expert opinion.

Anyway, on one occasion (not an am dram one), I was a dancer. Me! Two flat left feet, no coordination and short term memory issues to boot - a dancer!

Proudly, I stood on stage clad in jazzy top and frilled skirt, little twee shoes ready to float and twirl like never before. The music began. Off we went, round in a circles, swoop this way, spring that way, raise arms, do a twizzle or two, back two steps, skip three steps.....and the gradual realisation that an important piece of underwear had worked loose and was removing itself slowly but surely. Nope, it wasn't the knickers - it was the bra.

Bra straps eked their way down from my shoulders and peeped out from beneath the sleeves of the top. With elbows seriously shackled and preventing any artistic and elegant arm wafting, I stopped mid twirl and sashayed off stage into the wings.

'Hey, Mike' I whispered into the darkness, 'come here'. Mike made his way carefully through the flats and props.

'Stick your hands up the back of my tee shirt and fasten my bra'. Mike raked around in the darkness. His hands trembled as they went where angels fear to tread, but he accomplished his task without any embarrassing 'accidents'. With a whispered 'thank you' I was out onto the stage with a flutter of feet and an array of arms to hide my entrance. I don't think Mike had had such a good offer for donkey's years.

Year later I was walking along a corridor after a successful job interview. The area manager who interviewed me was some metres behind, walking with another manager. Without so much as a warning 'twang' my underskirt fell down around my ankles.

Stepping out of it, I picked it up and popped it into my bag, as if this sort of thing was quite normal and happened every day. I mean, what else is a girl supposed to do?