Felicia’s Schools of Ballroom Dancing
Photo of Felicia from a 1960 newspaper advertising her dancing schools
An old advert for Felicia’s Schools of Ballroom Dancing in the Sutton and Cheam Advertiser, dated Thursday 7th May 1953, caught my eye, and my imagination. To me, The Rembrandt was our local cinema where we took our children to watch films in the late 1980s and 1990s and was certainly never associated with ballroom dancing. So, who was Felicia, and where and how did her dancing career begin?
It turns out that Felicia was not a local girl but was the only child of Robert Jasper and Lydia Heslop, who had been born in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, on 14th October 1920. She remained living with her parents throughout both her marriages until their deaths in the late 1970s.
When the 1921 census was taken on 19th June, it recorded that Robert, Lydia and Felicia were living with Lydia’s parents, Philip Sadler and Hannah Young, at 147 Westmoreland Road, Newcastle-on-Tyne. Felicia’s father, Robert, was a grocer by trade and was working locally for grocery and provision merchants Home and Colonial Stores Ltd. (Robert’s father had worked for Tea Store Ltd. Co., which had been in some way connected with Home and Colonial Stores). The 1921 census also recorded that Felicia’s 66-year-old maternal grandfather Philip was an out of work labourer for Palmers Steel Works, and that her mother Lydia and her maternal grandmother Hannah were both domestics.
The family moved together to 136 Stanhope Street, Newcastle upon Tyne before moving in 1924 to 79 Victoria Road, Eston in the North Yorkshire district of Cleveland. They also lived at 3 Albyn Terrace, Grangetown before moving to 4 Gladstone Terrace in the same area. Whether these house-moves were for Robert’s or his father-in-law’s work is not known, but when Felicia’s grandmother died in April 1926 the family had moved back to 136 Stanhope Street.
On 13th May 1932, the Hull Daily Mail reported a concert at the Christ Church Parish Hall featuring Felicia, who was then a pupil of Miss Tipple and Miss Postell. The newspaper report indicates that Felicia, her parents and probably her grandfather, were living around Hull. Having searched for any other girl named Felicia Heslop born between 1919 and 1922, I believe this was her.
The family moved south to Peterborough in June 1934 when Felicia’s father Robert was transferred to the Home and Colonial Stores at 11 Bridge Street in Peterborough. On 7th December 1934, the Peterborough Standard ran a story reporting that Miss Felicia Heslop, aged 13, had organised a concert at the Boroughbury Methodist Church in which all the artistes were under the age of thirteen. All profits were to go towards the Sunday School fund.
On 8th March 1935 the same newspaper reported that Felicia, now aged 14, was holding another concert but this time in the Cobden Street Methodist School Room. She and her friends were pupils of the Lincoln Road Methodist Sunday School, and all the proceeds were going to the Junior Missionary Society.
The 1936 electoral rolls show that the family had again moved further south to 64 King Edwards Grove, Teddington, Middlesex. The following year they moved in the same area to 67a Clarence Street.
Felicia was aged 19 when the 1939 Register was compiled. It recorded that she and her parents were still living at the same address in Clarence Street with her grandfather Philip, and that her father was still working as a grocers’ assistant. Her grandfather was described at this time as a retired coal miner, while Felicia and her mother were recorded as unpaid domestics.
Felicia met her future husband Lyndon Bentley Wainwright (1919–2018) in 1940, the same year that her grandfather Philip had died. Felicia and Lyndon were married two years later in late 1942. During WW2 property was hard to come by, and so the newly-weds moved into Felicia’s parents’ home in Clarence Street. It was here that Felicia ran small dance classes for children.
Classed as working in a reserved occupation and having a heart murmur, Lyndon was exempt from military service during WW2, but he did do his share of fire watching during air-raids. His reserved occupation was the measurement of engineering components involved in the inspection of munitions gauges in the meteorology division of the National Physical Laboratory in Bushy Park, Teddington. Lyndon’s love and talent for ballroom dancing came from his parents, who had encouraged him and his sister to follow in their hobby.
Felicia and Lyndon were both small people – Felicia being about 5 feet tall and Lyndon only 3 inches taller than her. Lyndon was described as neat and trim in appearance, sporting a small moustache, while Felicia had a smooth oval face and wore her shiny jet-black hair parted in the middle and drawn back into a chignon at the nape of her neck. She was described by her husband as a striking beauty with an excellent figure.
After taking professional coaching with Rory and Maureen MacDermott in Twickenham Palais, they started to compete in dance competitions and their names appeared, as ‘Lyndon and Felicia’, in the Manchester Evening News on 22nd October 1942 when they were dancing at Winifred’s in Stretford Road, Manchester.
By 1943 they had turned professional and were for the first time paid for doing what they both loved – dancing. Felicia and her mother Lydia were now designing and making Felicia’s gowns out of whatever material could be found, while Lyndon bought his 5-guinea tail-suit on the never-never from the Co-operative Society. At Slaters Restaurant in Kensington the couple were paid 3 guineas for dancing the tango, waltz, slow-foxtrot, and quickstep, ending with an encore of the rumba. They soon realised that the blues were popular and after adding their twist to it, incorporated ‘The Continental Blues’ into their routine, finishing as an encore with the paso doble.
After qualifying as dance instructors, they were able to add the initials A.I.S.T.D. (Associate Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing) after their names. Having been taught by Monsieur Pierre, the couple specialised in Latin dances and helped to introduce these to the British public.
From the beginning of 1944 till 1953, newspapers up and down the country – Nottingham, Coventry, Dover, Ramsgate, Caterham, Cambridge, Purley, Newquay, Cleethorpes, Grimsby, and many other places – all reported the couple as either giving dancing demonstrations or acting as adjudicators in competitions.
Lyndon and Felicia
Image Credit: Blowin’ in the Wind: The Life of an Innocent by Lyndon Wainwright [Page 62]
Just before the end of the war, a bomb exploded in the garden of 67 Clarence Street. This resulted in Felicia’s father losing an eye and Felicia being hit by flying glass, which left her with a scar on her lower eyelid. The family were rehoused in a large detached 4-bedroomed house at 27 King Edward’s Grove. It was here in one of the bedrooms that Felicia continued to run her small dance school for children. Felicia’s parents were also ballroom dancers and helped out with the teaching.
On Tuesday 8th May 1945, Victory in Europe was celebrated throughout the country. Lyndon and Felicia joined in by giving a celebratory performance at the RAC club in Pall Mall for which they were paid 15 guineas.
At a date unknown, Felicia and Lyndon opened their first proper dance school, renting space for several evenings a week in a converted shop in Surbiton. It was here that several competitive dancers came to them for improvement lessons.
As well as running their school, they were still entering competitions. One of their great successes was when they won the Premier Prix in the World’s Eight Dance Professional Championship, staged in Paris in 1947/8. They also danced at the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, as well as in Switzerland, Holland, Éire, and Northern Ireland. The couple, now promoted as ‘International Latin-American stars’, also performed at Grosvenor House and the Dorchester in London, as well as the Hammersmith Palais with Victor Silvester and his orchestra in 1951.
As they say ’the Show must go on!’ and even after having a car crash in Peterborough when they were driving from London to Cleethorpes, the couple completed their journey by taking a train to arrive in time to give a ’first-rate demonstration’ and to judge the dancing at the Winter Gardens, where they were billed as ’Adjudicators and Demonstrators Lyndon and Felicia Stars of Television. The world’s greatest exponents of Latin-American dancing‘.
The converted shop in Surbiton was becoming too small for the ever-increasing amount of people interested in learning to dance so they acted quickly when the opportunity came up to lease the space previously used as a café above the Odeon Cinema in Kingston. The old café floor was made from Canadian maple and was just right for dancing but, best of all, the area could accommodate 100 dancers or more. They decorated the large area, installing eight loudspeakers, and once this was done, set about advertising the school by doing door-to-door pamphlet drop-offs and buying a new van that they had custom painted advertising their school.
Felicia’s parents were again heavily involved and ran the dance school when Felicia and Lyndon were away. The school proved to be very successful and ran practice classes on Saturdays especially aimed at pupils rather than competitive dancers. The photograph below was taken at their Kingston School of Ballroom Dancing.
Lyndon and Felicia
Image Credit: Blowin’ in the Wind: The Life of an Innocent by Lyndon Wainwright [Page 77]
At this time, Court Schools, another chain of successful dance schools, were applying to open a dance school above the ABC Cinema in Kingston. When Lyndon and Felicia heard this, they tried to lease it themselves but were too late. However, the ABC Cinema chain offered them a short-term quarterly lease in the Rembrandt Cinema in Ewell which they readily agreed to. Their Rembrandt Ballroom lessons would be held above the foyer in the former cinema café Rembrandt Virtual Tour – Cafe – Epsom & Ewell History Explorer (eehe.org.uk).
The Rembrandt Cafe in 1938
Image Credit: Premier Bioscope Collection
With the opening of their second dance school – run very successfully by Felicia’s parents – they began to advertise their new dancing school in the local newspapers, and on 13th February 1953 a very brief announcement was placed in the local Herald newspaper. This was followed with a more detailed advert on 17th April. However, it became apparent that their advertising needed to stand out from the other local dance schools’ adverts and so they added a photo of Felicia’s head to their newspaper adverts.
The Herald 13th February 1953
The Herald 17th April 1953
The Herald 22nd May 1953
Also in May 1953, the Sutton and Cheam Advertiser posted their advert stating that not only was Felicia’s offering lessons at the Odeon Ballroom above the Kingston Odeon Cinema, but also at the Rembrandt Ballroom above the Rembrandt Cinema in Ewell.
This advert stated that they offered tuition in Latin, Ballroom Dances, Medal Test Tuition, and private lessons daily by appointment. The classes for ‘Absolute Beginners Only’ ran on Wednesdays and Thursdays, ‘New Beginners Course’ on Mondays and Fridays, and a new ‘Over 30’s Course’ on Thursdays. The advert ended with a promise ‘Start now and dance well this summer holiday’. One of their pupils remembers that his teacher was Felicia’s father and described him as being a very skilled dancer/teacher who wore glasses with one lens blurred to hide his empty eye-socket.
Felicia’s Ballroom dancing lessons included the waltz, quickstep, foxtrot, samba, and tango. Former pupils have said that Felicia was very elegant and walking around smoking long cigarettes through a holder, and that both Felicia and Lyndon were a delightful couple but very strict. Felicia insisted that, if you were asked to dance, you could not refuse that person – no wallflowers were allowed! Their dance training even extended to an article in the Daily Mirror giving written advice on how to tap-dance, and tips on dancing etiquette.
Felicia’s School of Ballroom Dancing Registration Card
Image courtesy of Bourne Hall Museum
When Bill Hayley and the Comets released their hit record Rock around the Clock, rock ‘n’ roll and the ballroom jive were added to the dance lessons. By 1956, with the success of their dance studios in Kingston and Ewell, they opened a new ballroom dancing school in Brighton Road, Purley, above the Regal Cinema. Here Felicia’s also advertised Saturday afternoon ballroom dancing lessons for children. Lyndon concentrated his skills as a teacher here, while Felicia and one of their pupil dancers taught at the Kingston dance school, leaving the Ewell dance school under the care of Felicia’s parents.
The Herald 24th May 1957
The year 1958 started well when, on 8th February, the dancing duo made an appearance at the Carlton Rooms in Maida Vale where the 8th edition of the BBC ’Television Dancing Club’ competition was being held. A demonstration of the Mambo, a Cuban-American dance routine that had resulted from a fusion of a jazz idiom with more traditional forms of Cuban rumba music, was given by Lyndon and Felicia dancing to Victor Silvester and his orchestra. The outfits that the dazzling couple wore had been designed, as usual, by Felicia herself.
At the end of the year on 8th December, the BBC Television Dancing Club was again held at the Carlton Rooms and once again, Lyndon and Felicia demonstrated their amazing dancing. Just days later, on 22nd December, the couple would be seen dancing together for the last time at the Green Man Ballroom, West Ealing.
During their dancing partnership, the couple delivered more than 400 shows a year and when they appeared on the BBC show Casa de Salta with the Edmundo Ros Orchestra, and on Victor Silvester’s BBC Dancing Club, it was estimated that, beside the television audience, nearly one million people had personally seen them dance. It was also said during this time, that Lyndon & Felicia were one of the UK’s highest-paid ballroom dancing couples.
The dancing duo broke up after Felicia discovered that Lyndon was having an affair with one of his new pupils from the dance school in Purley. Felicia initiated divorce proceedings on the grounds of adultery and the couple, who had been together for 20 years, were divorced in 1960. According to Lyndon’s book Blowin’ in the Wind: The Life of an Innocent, he left Felicia with the house, schools, business van, and their powerful left-hand drive American car.
On 27th January 1961 Felicia closed her Rembrandt dancing school with a final Farewell Party Dance, but said in her farewell newspaper advert that she hoped her pupils would still go to the other two schools. (No adverts for these two schools have been found after February 1961). It has been estimated that over 30,000 pupils had been taught to dance by Felicia and Lyndon.
Farewell Party Dance on 27th January 1961
The Herald 20th January 1961
Felicia found love again and after marrying divorcee Ernest Charles Brunt in 1964, the newly-weds continued living with her parents at 2a The Ridge, Surbiton. Ernest had lived with his first wife and son in Collier Close, West Ewell, and may well have met Felicia at her dance school.
Having always lived with her parents her entire life, it must have been traumatic when Felicia’s mother died in 1978 and her father in 1979. After their deaths, she and Ernest moved and bought a home together in Woking.
By 1985, according to Lyndon’s book, Felicia was happily married but in bad health when Lyndon invited her and her husband as guests to his retirement show. At the end, he invited Felicia on to the dance floor to take a final bow with him.
Lyndon, Deidre Baker, Felicia and Jane Tumelty acknowledging applause following
Lyndon’s retirement show.
Image Credit: Blowin’ in the Wind: The Life of an Innocent by Lyndon Wainwright [Page 160]
Aged 73, Felicia died on 17th August 1993 at her home The Bungalow, Barracks Path Street, Woking. Ernest continued to live there and in 2005, aged 79, remarried. The 2018 electoral roll listed him as still living there with his third wife Jean.
Although after their divorce Lyndon gave up professional dancing, he still adjudicated for dance competitions and was heavily involved in the International Dance Teachers Association (I.D.T.A). He also became the author of several books about dancing. After marrying twice more (there was one son from his second marriage) he was aged 98 when he died in 2018.
Hazel Ballan 2024
Sources:
Ancestry.com
The Herald and Sutton and Cheam Advertiser newspapers
Wainwright, Lyndon, Blowin’ in the Wind: The Life of an Innocent (Scarborough: Farthings, 2012) pp.55, 56, 59, 60, 61, 66, 70, 76, 99, 103, 104, 105, 159, 190.
International Dance Teachers Association
Obituary from The Telegraph Lyndon Wainwright, exhibition ballroom dancer – obituary (telegraph.co.uk)
Personal memories from: Malcolm A. Dunne, Raymond P. Apsey, Patricia Howard, and Patricia Pearlman.