This is John Lowe, a WWII Veteran and retired art teacher. He is 95 and started dancing when he was 79.
In 1965 I became director manager of the small Strode Theatre in Street, Somerset. I would stand in the wings and sketch, thinking, ‘How I wish I could dance like that!'
I went to a dance school in the high street in Ely and asked if I could do tap and ballet and they said 'well of course you can' and I've been doing it ever since.
The really important thing for me is that I am working with much younger people who treat me not as an old man – which I most certainly am – but as a friend.
I moved into this place when I was 80 and the first thing I did was lay a wooden floor so I could roller skate on it and then I installed the ballet bar. I move the furniture to do my ballet turns. I can get four in, if I cross the room diagonally.
There's nothing effeminate about it - you have to be incredibly fit to dance.
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| John Lowe, 1942 in Malaya. |
During World War II, I lost six of the best years of my life and I’ve been trying to catch up ever since.
I learned a great deal from the three years I spent in a prisoner-of-war camp in Japan. I realized that if you put your mind to it, you can do almost anything. . . We would go on trips to find furniture for the camp. One of our soldiers found an old piano. He knew all the old cabaret songs and taught them to me so that we could do concerts.
I am a lucky man to be alive and I love to entertain people. I think if people find it uplifting I am justified in doing the showing-off.
Mr. Lowe is certainly justified in doing the showing-off.
Updated 1/10/2018
#Dance #Ballet #WWII #Old
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