God's gift of dance

PAT PROUT always had a day job working with her hands but her skill with her feet provided the stand-out happy memories in a second, part-time career as a dance teacher.

It was not until Pat, (born Pat Bryant), was in her 20s that she got the chance to spend much time doing the thing she loved.

Born in 1921, she left school at 14 to go into domestic work and lived in service in a house in Tavistock Road. During World War Two she was a shop assistant in Woolworth's, Devonport, but lost her job and her home when Fore Street was bombed in 1941. Like many people during that chaotic time, she was temporarily separated from her family.

"I went to the police station to find them," she recalls. "But we had to live apart because we couldn't find a home together. My dad went to St Ives, where he was from originally, and I was put up in the Catholic church in Saltash.

"The people there were so good to us. We went to the Salvation Army for our meals. I remember we had pea soup a lot! After a while my uncle said I could have a room in his house and I paid him 1s (5p) a week in rent."

Pat later got work in the dockyard but her passion was dancing, a skill which she loved to pass on to others.

"Children used to come to me and I'd teach them," she says. "I was never taught, I just learned. I picked it all up: tap, sequence, modern, ballet, Irish and Scottish. I picked it all up."

There was no shortage of willing young pupils but Pat was short of somewhere to teach them. So she did what so many did when they were in need – she went to see Plymouth Sutton MP Nancy, Lady Astor. "I asked her if she could find me a hall where I could teach the children to dance," says Pat. "She told me I could be a member of her Band of Hope. She gave me a badge with that on and said I had to be a good Christian and give the money I made to charity, and if I did I could use Ker Street Hall. Lady Astor was so loving."

Pat took a day job in the dockyard, working in the stores, and on days off and in the evenings taught dancing.

Demand grew until Pat was leading classes in Whitleigh, Ham, Oreston and Honicknowle, using the name Pat Flint's Dancing School.

By now she was married, to Gordon Flint, a draughtsman in the dockyard, and she found time to bring up two children, Alan and Gloria.

The family moved away to Surrey for several years in the 1950s.

Sadly, Pat's marriage broke up but when she returned to Plymouth she wed again, to Victor Prout, a driver in the dockyard. They lived in Woodville Close, Swilly, and had two children of their own, David and Heather.

Pat again took up the dancing lessons. Many will know her from the Sunshine School of Dancing which again ran classes across the city.

Her daughter from her first marriage was one of her keenest pupils. Unlike her mum, Gloria went through all her exams and danced professionally on a few occasions in Plymouth. She is rather better known for her occupation and under her married name – Gloria Bragg is a city councillor for St Budeaux.

Today, Pat has long since hung up her dancing shoes. She turned 88 last month and although there is no husband to comfort her – Victor died in 1992 – at her home in West Park, she has the company of a large family, including six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren, and the memories of all the young ones she taught.

"Dancing was God's gift to me," she says. "I still see some of the children I taught."

Perhaps some of you are in one of her photos. Do you recognise yourself or another youngster or one of the helpers in this line-up from a show at the Pat Flint school at Woodland Fort, 1942?