August
7
26 July 1938: The 'Lambeth Walk' – new dance officially recognised
If a new ballroom dance is becoming popular the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing – which is the arbiter of ballroom dancing here and, indeed, for the Continent as well – takes notice of it. Last week the society concluded its annual conference in London by its usual tea-dance, at which the foremost teachers demonstrate the latest in waltz, foxtrot, or tango to their intensely critical colleagues. And, sure enough, these more serious proceedings on Saturday were interrupted by the announcement that "now there will be a Lambeth Walk". Almost all the fourteen hundred present – including teachers from five different European countries, from the Dominions, and from the United States – then took to the floor. 'The Lambeth Walk' had been officially recognised.
It is – as Eddie Cantor said in his recent broadcast – a freak among modern ballroom dances. It is the only one which has originated here and not the United States. Now it has crossed the Atlantic and is to be seen in New York. In this country three million people are said to be doing it, some of them, no doubt, surprised that anything so simple and so unmodern can be so enjoyable.
One set out to discover how it all came about. Two years ago there was a musical comedy at the Coliseum called 'Twenty to One', with "book" by Mr. Arthur Rose, and with Mr. Lupino Lane in the part of Bill Snipson, a Cockney tipster. A characteristic of Bill Snipson was his fine coster strutting gait, thumbs cheerfully "up". The part reappeared in Mr. Rose's 'Me and My Girl', which has now been at the Victoria Palace since Christmas, and this time Snipson sings a song about his walk – 'The Lambeth Walk'.
In March the manager of the Locarno Dance Hall at Streatham went to see 'Me and My Girl' and decided that 'The Lambeth Walk' might be turned into a ballroom diversion. Miss England, the chief of his dancing staff, then evolved the knee-slapping, the stamps, the turns and the shout of "Oi". Success was instantaneous at the Locarno and subsequently in the main dance-halls of England and of Scotland (where "Hoch oi" is shouted instead of "Oi").
Mr. Arthur Rose, when one talked with him, remembered that Alec Hurley had a song, 'The Lambeth Walk,' thirty-five years ago. But, he added, he had been reminded of this only since the run of 'Me and My Girl' had begun, so it was just a case of "similar material, similar results."
Lambeth is still one of the coster centres, and London costers walk like Bill Snipson. Similarly Miss England, for the ballroom dance, thought of Cockney mannerisms to add to the pure "thumbs-up" swagger. Major C Taylor, the president of the I.S.T.D., whose memories go back to the eighties, says that costers on Hampstead Heath danced like this sixty years ago.
The Guardian, Saturday 26 July 2014
Kindly sent by Christopher Raven, skilled Lambeth Walk dancer and man of many talents