Walt Tingle       1928-2015

From Colin Hume…

Walt Tingle died on Friday 11th September.  His son Mark tells me that Walt had been slowly going downhill for three months; Mark believes he was ready for it and knew it was going to happen.

Walt was one of my formative influences as a caller.  He was a very blunt Yorkshireman who knew what he wanted; it was from him, for instance, that I picked up “Face your partner before the music starts”.  We also had many discussions on dance interpretation and good and bad ways of teaching and calling a dance; I learnt a lot from him.  We didn't always agree, which will come as no surprise to anyone who knew both of us.

I remember one Chippenham Festival announcing Walt as an “American caller”.  “I'm not an American caller”, he retorted, “I'm an everything caller”.  And so he was — he called Playford, English traditional and occasionally International — but it was his American Squares that I particularly loved, always delivered with a sense of humour and no respect of persons.

I went to a dance week at Halsway Manor which Walt was leading, and at the end he suggested I join his display team “The Jovial Beggars”.  I said I didn't really believe in display teams: I thought the dances were there to be danced, not watched.  “So do we”, he said, “that's why we dance them”.  So I joined the team, rehearsing one Sunday a month in Harlow, Essex, and often going back to Walt and Noreen's house for a wonderful meal afterwards.  Rehearsals could be quite argumentative — particularly when Mark was there — but Walt knew he couldn't just order people about and make them do things his way.  Eventually he would say, “All right, I've heard all the arguments, now this is how we'll do it”, and people were always happy that their ideas had been heard.  I didn't have a Playford costume for some time — Noreen later made one for me — so Walt would lead the “gentry” in their posh gear and I would lead the “rustics” in our smocks, knee breeches, waistcoats etc.  It was a really good combination; the gentry would dance a couple of genteel Playford dances and then the rustics would burst on with something loud and energetic.  We always had plenty of repartee with the crowd, which I think is really important; so many display teams would process on, dance three very complicated Playford dances and process off again, without any acknowledgement of the audience.  We weren't like that — our unspoken motto was “We may not be brilliant dancers, but by God we're Jovial”!  And the fact is that the audience — unless they happened to be dancers — would be much more impressed by an 8-couple version of “Cumberland Square Eight” or a Sicilian circle version of “Nottingham Swing” than the complexities of “Fain I Would” or “Lull me beyond thee”.

Noreen died a few years ago, and now Walt is gone too.  The Funeral was on Tuesday 29th September at Greenacres Woodland Burials.

There was a short get-together at the end where people who knew him talked about him, followed by finger food at Moot House where Walt was Chairman for many years.  Photos of Walt, Noreen and people associated with them were on display, and you can view them here — if you click on the first photo and then use the arrow keys you can see each of them full-screen.  You can also click here to listen to what I said at the funeral.

From Kate Badrick…

John and I first met Walt in about 1969.  I was attending a teacher training course and there I met another student who was a member of the Harlow Folk Dance Group.  She told me of a public dance the group were organising and I bought tickets from her.  I cannot remember who the musicians were but Walt as the caller was very memorable.  We had a great evening.  I had enjoyed folk dancing at school and in the Girl Guides but there had been a long gap for me and John had never experienced the pleasure but with Walt's excellent calling we coped without making too many blunders.

Once I started my first teaching job I felt the need to escape from the very long hours of preparation which I needed to do and suggested to John that we go to the Club evenings on Fridays.  Walt and the club members were very welcoming and we became regular members.

Walt told us that his interest in dancing had begun with ballroom dancing.  I believe his interest in folk dancing started after he came to Harlow.  He always said he preferred the informality of folk dancing to the more formal ballroom style.  I am not sure when he became the leader of the Harlow group, but he was a great asset.  Evenings were always fun, but for Walt it was not just a matter of “doing dances”; they had to be done well.  His idea was that the better you performed the dances the more you enjoyed them.  So at the end of a dance he would sometimes suggest that we try a figure or part of a dance again.  We would follow his suggestion and then dance just a few turns of the dance again.  This way he built up a group who achieved a very good standard.

As well as the weekly meetings he introduced a fortnightly workshop evening for a few of us, addicted or mad enough to want more.  Here we would walk through and try out dances which were new to us.  As a result of this, when the whole club met on a Friday it did not take long for everybody to pick up the new material.

When we were without a baby-sitter one Friday we took Simon and Justine along.  Walt encouraged them and they joined in.  What Justine lacked in height she made up for in enthusiasm!  Walt encouraged members to go to various Festivals around the country and this led us to our first Festival which was the first Lacock (now Chippenham) Festival.  Several of the Harlow Group went to this and to Sidmouth and Broadstairs and Whitby and further festivals over the next few years.  He encouraged those members, who wanted to, to call a dance sometimes, during the club evenings.  I think it made those of us who did this, realise it was not as simple as Walt made it look and to appreciate just how good he was.

When I began my teaching career in 1970 there was an established Schools Folk Dance Event in Harlow.  Most of the primary schools in the town took part at the Sports Centre.  I am not sure if this was Walt's creation or if it was established before his arrival in the town.  He organised this event for my first two years of teaching but then he gained a deputy-headship across the county border to Hertfordshire.  His move was a great loss to Harlow and I had a very steep learning curve to continue the organisation of this event for several years until I changed my job location.

I think it was Walt who set up the Harlow Day of Dance.  Harlow Group used to go out and perform at the neighbourhood shopping centres in the morning with the Redbridge Band, on the first occasion which I remember.  In the afternoon we went to the Town Centre and were here joined by other groups, which Walt had invited.  These were groups of dancers from the area with a variety of different styles.  We had Scottish, Irish, Morris and Belly Dancers and sometimes there were singers.  Over several years we had various bands accompanying this day.  In the evening Walt called for a public dance.  Walt regarded himself not just as a caller.  He was an entertainer at public dances.  He had a very large repertoire and could put together a programme not too difficult for inexperienced dancers but containing features that experienced dancers could enjoy.

In 1977, through EFDSS, Peter Dashwood asked Walt to form a team to go to a festival in Belgium.  This team became The Jovial Beggars.

Peter put the same proposition to Pip Sadler in Ipswich.  The result was that both groups accepted and together we went, as two halves of the English team.  We had a wonderful time and afterwards Walt and the rest of us were keen to keep the group going.  We had made some costumes and hired Playford costume from EFDSS, and decided that all the time spent in practice and effort in making costumes needed to be further exploited.

In 1979 the Jovial Beggars were invited to take part in a festival in Sweden we were guests of the Kil group Hembygdsförenings Folkdanslag This was a wonderful experience.  The Swedes were very kind generous hosts.  We learned some of each other's dances, the musicians exchanged music and some long-lasting friendships were established.  We were able to return their hospitality by inviting them to come to England as our guests.  It was difficult to organise as Jovial Beggars came from a very wide area and the Swedes came in three minibuses but it was so good to see our Swedish Friends again.  We took them for their first weekend in England to Broadstairs Festival and then showed them something of East Anglia and London.  We were able to arrange an Anglo-Swedish Dance at Cecil Sharp House as a finale to their visit.

In 1983 Walt led the Jovial Beggars to Sweden again to take part in an International Festival where eight countries were involved.

In 1987 we were hosts to the Goldene Sechser Folklore Gruppe from Hofgeismar in Germany and in 1988 we went to Hofgeismar where again we had a wonderful time, dancing and sightseeing.

In between these exciting visits Walt organised weekend visits to many festivals, stately homes and social events.  He organised courses at Halsway Manor and Hitchin Rural Music School and several at Belstead House.  These were all fully booked and people came from all over the country as many knew of his prowess.  There was rarely a weekend between May and September when Jovial Beggars were not involved in a dance event.  Walt choreographed many sequences of dances for these performances; a few were done by members of the group and some were modified after general discussion.  He directed sequences of Playford dances, dances which we knew as our Rustic Sequences and American squares and contras.  Many of these were adaptable according to the numbers of dancers available.  The men occasionally did some longsword dances and a few of the women did some clog dancing, so under Walt's direction we could give quite a varied programme.

Walt gave so much pleasure to so many people: as dance teacher, club and barn dance caller, leader of Harlow Folk Dance Group and leader of his creation The Jovial Beggars.  He had a widespread reputation, as the following story shows:

Charles and Mary Nyman lived in Harlow.  They were not folk dancers and we knew them through amateur dramatic activities in Harlow.  While on holiday in Sicily they went up Mount Etna.  When the volcano was getting increasingly active their guide decided it was time to retreat.  They shared the transport down with a Dutch couple and got talking to them.  When Charles said that they lived in Harlow, one of the couple asked “Do you know Walt Tingle?”

From Mark Tingle, as told to Colin Hume…

As soon as Walt moved to Harlow (in 1957) he joined the Folk Dance Group.  The leader was not very dynamic and they were still using 78 records; Walt soon changed all that.  Mark started dancing when he was 8; by 10 or 11 he was over 5 feet tall so ladies were willing to dance with him.  A couple of years later he and Walt started Modern Western Square Dancing, and it was here that Walt learnt to call American — he was already calling the English.  He had very strong views about Playford interpretations.  And he was very keen on people doing things right — dancing correctly — for instance, how to swing.  If a learner dances with someone who knows, they know what it should feel like.  It's a shame that so few clubs have anyone who teaches people how to dance.  That was what made Harlow club so attractive to people; they saw that by learning as he taught they would become good dancers.  It worked: Harlow had 12 couples of demonstration quality, without actually being a display team.  He always asked why there isn't someone in a club who helps people to dance better.  There are people capable, if the clubs were willing to let them.

Jean Matthews really had a go at Walt, saying the dances he was calling at “Harlow at the House” were too complicated.  These were the sort of dances they did at Harlow every week, but she went berserk — said it wasn't social dancing — but it was!  It was social dancing as Harlow did it.  The Harlow group had the House for the day, and this was a short afternoon session — a bit of a workshop.  The evening dance was less complex, but people can't expect to walk in off the streets for a workshop.  Walt told her he didn't care what she thought: this is a workshop for people who know what they're doing.  He was never asked to call at the House again.  Mark was born in '53, so this would be late sixties, early seventies.

Walt's influence extended to dancers far away from Harlow.  Possibly it was calling with the Orange and Blue, who were one of the first Folk Dance bands.  Walt had no transport at that time, so friends got him there — mainly the Bedford and Northampton area.  People loved his calling, and they liked the fact that he was stretching them a bit.  They also enjoyed his sense of humour, though it did get a bit naughty at times: Mark used to cringe sometimes at what he said.  As he became more mobile, more and more people booked him to call, including Liverpool and further North — he had a tremendous following up there.

They regularly went to Sidmouth, starting in '65 when Mark was 12.  Walt went for 10+ years.  In those days you would get one dance workshop in the morning, then something in the afternoon if you were lucky, then an evening dance.  They got fed up with that, so Walt would find himself a maybe not very experienced musician (or use his variable-speed tape recorder), find an unused hall (and there were plenty then) and hold a dance.  It started with a few dancers, built up, and got to the point where Walt would run an afternoon dance with 50-60 people.  There was some other event in the pavilion or somewhere, but all the dancers wanted to dance, and Bill Rutter didn't like Walt luring them away!  After people had danced to Walt at Sidmouth they started booking him for their local dances.  He always did a mix, and everybody had a great time.

Walt got frustrated with people who wouldn't listen and didn't want to dance better, and sometimes he was rude.  A lot of dancers aren't willing to accept someone who would say “You're doing that wrong”.  And if Walt travelled any distance he wanted to do a workshop as well as an evening dance, to try and get people dancing better.