Page 190 - Demo

186would not go with me to Kinloss and so I would have to stay in the mess and get home as and when. She was not so emphatic about St Mawgan but certainly was less than keen. Secondly, we were getting well integrated socially into Tholthorpe. Our RAF social life was at Leeming which was 20 miles away and so Gabby very seldom went to any function. I had to attend Dining In Nights and other official functions but on my own. Gabby thinks she only came up to Leeming once. I could visit the Linton Mess but was not a member. We had made several friends in Tholthorpe and there were several 50/50 dances, often orchestrated by an accordion duo. These dances were 50% pop and 50% ballroom. After a while we realised we needed to know how to dance and so went to lessons in York. We were never much good as Gabby refused to be led. If I was guiding her into some manoeuvre she would push back and go a bit rigid and I would forget the steps anyway. We attended the first dance that we saw advertised with a certain amount of trepidation but fell into Geoff Wood%u2019s orbit with Tom and Judy Thompson and some others at the dance. When it ended Geoff said come back for a coffee. I can remember walking back up the road and discussing it. We eventually decided to go and that was that. We made friends for life. The dances were to raise funds for the village hall and we gradually became more involved with that. Gabby remembers organising discos as well at that time. We had sent the boys to Helperby school when they were old enough, as we were not happy with Alne School at that time. The Alne headmaster was coming up to retirement and the school was drifting. And so we also attended the odd fund raising event in Helperby. There were 4 pubs in Helperby at that time although one of them had no outward appearance of being a pub. The landlord had taken the pub sign down for repainting but had never put it back. It was run by 2 brothers who used their licence to run outdoor bars at various farming events. They were bachelors, I believe and running the pub was really a social life for them. I went there once with our neighbours. We went in