The Tale of a Tale: Wandering Bones, Returning Home

By Pamela Ratsey

The Tale of a Tale is a companion to The Tale of a Hip (published 2018). It expands on the theme of taking up ballroom dancing seriously in middle age, and the problem of misaligned bones, a limiting factor in many aspects of Pamela’s life, leading ultimately to hip replacement. Despite difficulties, she and John go on to take professional exams in both ballroom and Latin American dancing, and teach for more than twenty years, offering the joy, companionship, and relief from worldly cares they have experienced themselves to a large number of people.

A second strand of the book follows major current events, notably Brexit and COVID-19, and shows an old person’s take on social change, and the march of technology. Controversial issues related to equality and diversity are explored from a then-and-now perspective, with humour, and respect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 28, 2024
• ISBN: 9781398469181

Pamela Ratsey

Pamela grew up in Yorkshire, moving to the Home Counties with parents in her teens. Until her early twenties, she worked in London department stores and as a nurse at St. George’s hospital. After spending several years as a stay-at-home mum, Pamela studied for a degree in English at Reading University, followed by working in technical and non-technical editing posts for some years. More recently, she taught ballroom and Latin American dancing in partnership with her husband John, for local authorities and independently. This came to an end in 2008, when John was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Book preview

About the Author

Pamela grew up in Yorkshire, moving to the Home Counties with her parents in her teens. Until her early twenties, she worked in London department stores, and as a nurse at St. George’s hospital.

After spending several years as a stay-at-home mum, Pamela studied for a degree in English at Reading University, followed by working in technical and non-technical editing posts for some years. More recently, she taught ballroom and Latin American dancing in partnership with her husband John, for local authorities and independently. This came to an end in 2008, when John was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

Dedication

This book has been written very much with my late husband John in mind, who died in 2016 with Parkinson’s. Without his help, patience, and support for almost six decades, I would never have achieved my long-term dream of having a book published.

Copyright Information ©

Pamela Ratsey 2024

The right of Pamela Ratsey to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398469150 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398469167 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398469181 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

Many thanks to my long-term chiropractor and mentor, Dr Desmond T. Pim (also sadly gone) for helping me not to give up on my mission to create an exercise system.

Thank you also to the many teachers who had more faith in me than I had in myself, and to Cainer astrologers, who helped to keep me on track while waiting for Saturn and Pluto to get their act together.

Finally, my thanks to the publishers, for giving a once low-tech oldie an opportunity not to give up.

2019 Between the Lines

Recollections, Reflections, Reservations

One damp afternoon last November, I sat in the conservatory in the fading light, with scenes from the past soothing lingering sorrow, at peace in my solitary world.

Near the darkening hedge, through half-closed eyes, a softly gleaming unicorn stood guard over the last red rose of summer, patiently waiting. The next day, I cut its prickly stem with care, and took it to my dear love in his quiet wooded glade, two years on exactly from our parting.

Despite the limitation imposed equally on both of us by a mischievous quirk of fate, long before we met, John completed his sixty-year mission of love and faith quite brilliantly. As I step forward now, without his helping hand, it is time to complete my own.

***

I have always wanted to help people, but somehow never quite found the right way. Any puny attempt to do something socially useful more often than not ended up confusing an unsuspecting prey or embarrassing me.

My father wasn’t good at that sort of thing either. In my last year at junior school, he presented me with several neat packages tied with bows, each containing a jotter and pencil, a blood-red orange, four boiled sweets, one shiny shilling and a threepenny bit, and a corned beef sandwich.

I was instructed to give these to the poorest children in my class, those I knew to be less fortunate than me. The ones who would soon be left behind, to live out unwanted schooldays in ambition-free boredom, whilst the supposedly clever amongst us went off to girls only, or boys only grammar schools, to indulge in exotics like French and Chemistry, and play hockey in bright blue T-shirt and navy-blue knickers. Or football, also with red legs, rushing up and down a mud-churned, grass-shorn pitch.

Even as I write, their disbelieving faces roll back the years, making me cringe as I did back then, feeling very small. But Dad meant well.

My mum-in-law Eleanor, known as rapid response Nell on her home patch, was a seasoned expert in the social services arena. She made an industry out of knowing everybody’s business, and given the smallest chance revelled in regaling me with all the latest happenings in her neighbours’ lives, in excruciating detail. The latest bulletin on Mrs Bull’s arthritis, or Babs’ in-growing toenail was of little interest even at first telling.

Yet, she meant well too. More usefully, she recognised what people actually needed, help with shopping, hospital visits, home-made apple pies, hanging out washing.

Eleanor admired my father’s numerous artistic talents extravagantly. Before her adored only son and I got engaged, no one ranked higher in her esteem than the BBC news reader Richard Baker, whose voice on the radio made her shiver, and who she regarded as her personal best friend. Celebrity potential in the family (Dad’s view and hers) complete with palette and easel, and brush-streaked buff overall, came even closer to the stuff of her dreams.

You’ll probably be famous one day too, she once threw at me out of the blue, as my eyes were beginning to glaze over for the second time since lunch.

I was genuinely taken aback, although I was already uncomfortably aware of her misguided perception that I could do absolutely anything I put my mind to. The pig’s breakfast I made of cutting her grand-daughter’s hair, when she was about three, really should have disabused her for all time of such nonsense.

Lines I had scribbled on the back of an envelope in the launderette the day before fell on deaf ears, and an already made-up mind.

As I walked out one wintry day, for openersWhat corn!" you’ll say,

But wait, for from a seed forlorn, sometimes a masterpiece is born.

Unlikely this time, silently, your dead-pan face replies.

Agreed! Yet, though improbable, deride not she who tries.

As I walked out one wintry day, now what was it I meant to say?

The words refuse to come just right, and Muse, unaided by the sight of one who, seized by mirthful peals, stray thoughts of unwashed socks reveals,

Must rest a while, then scorning scorn, rise proud to greet another morn."

The following silence seemed like an eternity. Not the merest hint of a smile. Not even a twitch. It was as if the previous few moments never existed.

Scatty Sal fell down the stairs yesterday. Her ankle’s the size of a football.

The world needs many more people like you, than like me, I replied, heading for the kitchen. Cup of tea?

She drank like a fish.

***

Life as the real me had its beginnings in my early forties, when John and I took up Strictly-style dancing, at a shabby little studio in a Reading back street, known affectionately as 21B, before television enhanced or ruined it, depending on point of view. With teenage fledglings, one male one female, hovering at the edge of the nest, weighing