Saturday 2nd October 2010
St. Margaret's Village Hall
Reach Road
St. Margarets-at-Cliffe
7.00 p.m. to 11.00 p.m.
Dancing to
To be arranged
Minicrib sheets for the dance to be provided when programme agreed
General classes are held on Monday evenings from 8.00 p.m. to 10.00 p.m. at The Triangle Centre, Dover. The cost is £2.00 per night.
A Childrens class is held on Wednesdays.
The group was started on November 27th 1947 by the Dover Scottish Society as
The Scottish Practice Class. They met in a house belonging to Dr and Mrs Brown, 2 Maison Dieu Rd. and used gramophone records for the music. Someone called R.Grant took the class.
Then in 1948 they moved to Charlton Rd School where Pipe Major Roderick McCleod was the teacher accompanied by a Mrs Savage on the piano.
Charges were 1/- per night!
In 1949 the AGM recorded that the class had made a profit of £11-9-9d and was exceptionally successful both socially and financially!
By 1960 they were meeting in Barton Rd School -teacher - Mrs White. It was at this time that Margaret Rogers, Barbara Wells, Norah, Jean and Audrey Banks (who ultimately took the class) joined.
In the 1970's they met at St. Ursula's convent in Park Avenue and then transferred to St. Richards school in Castle Avenue- which is where I first joined them, as our Walmer class had closed.
Murray Smith was the teacher, and for a while they had two classes, one for beginners and Audrey and Murray took them alternately. Then Murray moved to London and Audrey took the class which moved once more -back to Barton Rd School but in a different hall. Here Jan Friend joined us.
In 1974 Audrey left to get married and Philip Sewell who was a member of the Dover Scottish Society took the class and we moved to The Duke of Yorks School for a short while.
We then came back to the town and met in the then United Reform Church during which time Philip retired and on February 19th 1988 Tony Baldwin became the teacher having joined the class a little while before.
In 1989 the Dover Scottish Society decided that as our teacher was not a member of the Society we ought to be independent from them, so we officially became the Dover Scottish Country Dance Group, and a few years after that we moved to Salem Baptist hall.
And now, after just over 16 years Tony retired, October 11th. 2004 and we are thinking of moving yet again.
So I make it that we are 57 this year in November from our first beginnings, but only 15 from the time we became independent. It remains to be seen how many of us will still be going strong at our diamond jubilee!
Mary Quinton
To find out more about the Dover Scottish Country Dance Group and their activities click on the image below and send an email or use the link on the KASS Contacts page.
Our teacher is Mary Quinton.
We do not have a beginner's class but Mary and some of the experienced dancers will take time to show beginners the basic steps and movements. At the class all the dances are walked through four or five times before we dance them to music.