My brother Greg was an excellent ballroom dancer (he won countless trophies for it) and he would ‘hit the town’ almost every Saturday and Sunday night to any venue where he could enjoy his favourite pastime.
One particular Sunday night, just before Christmas 1962, he was keen to go to the local church dance, but needed transport to get there. Swallowing his pride, and in any case he was desperate, he asked me to drive him down there in my little shit-heap and suggested that, seeing I wasn’t doing anything in particular that evening, I join him at the dance and practice my very limited dancing skills. I put on my newly acquired Sunday suit and we headed off to ‘romance’ some unsuspecting females.
We paid our entry fee and made our way into the hall and the first two girls I spotted were pretty ‘smashing’ good sorts in my opinion and decided that I would like to dance with both of them with the intention of getting to know them a bit better.
Trisha and Margaret their names were (I found out later on) and by way of deciding which one to ask first I had a quick mental ‘toss up’, Trisha lost, and I asked her for the first dance. She was pretty, friendly and very charming (and still is) and I really enjoyed dancing with her.
The second dance I had was with Margaret, who had the same qualities, and after the dance we struck up a conversation and during a break in one of the dance sets I bought her a drink (lemonade of course) and we told each other a few things about one another. She was from Heathcote, near Bendigo, and she and Trisha were employed as office girls at Pelaco in Richmond. She, along with her sister Patty, who was also at the dance, boarded at Box Hill and often went back home to Heathcote at week-ends.
I informed her that I was a photo-engraver and that, along with my swanky, brown checked suit, convinced me that she was suitable impressed. After the dance I offered to drive her home and she agreed, provided I drove her sister home as well.
“No worries,” I said and escorted the two girls along the footpath, past all the gleaming F.J. Holdens, chrome covered Vauxhalls, etc, and came to a halt in front of my rusty, insignificant little match box. They had all the trouble in the world hiding their initial disappointment and then their mirth.
As I am writing this story, in July 1992, Margaret and I have been married for 27 years, have got two sons, Mark 26 and Craig 24, our adopted son Brett 20 and Marg and Trisha are still good friends after all those years and go to aerobics together.
Every now and then we remember the night we met and the introduction to my little “limosine” still gets a laugh from everyone we relate the story to.