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Most Tuesday nights I walk up Church Lane to the Stromness Community Centre and go to ‘the dancing’. It’s hard to define this event for those who have never experienced it. It is not a ceilidh. A ceilidh in the true sense of the word is music, song, sharing, everyone doing their party piece. A ceilidh in the modern (or ‘modren’ as they say in Orkney) sense is a band, much drink and stripping the willow until you are dizzy. ‘The dancing’ is neither of these things.

When I lived in Edinburgh I attended several drunken ceilidhs at the Caledonian brewery, and great fun they were too. I loved whirling around, feeling the wooden floor pounding beneath my feet, getting breathless and waking up the next day aching, and bruised around the inner elbow (a result of the aforementioned Strip the Willow). They never came frequently enough for me and I did not dance as often as I would have liked.

On arriving in Orkney I discovered dancing alive and thriving in church halls, and set about throwing myself into the fray. The pace, I soon found out, was more sedate, but the stamina required was greater. As I hopped and skipped with every beat, a wise bearded gentleman took me aside and muttered these words of advice: ‘Take smaller steps, lassie. You’ll last longer’.

From 7pm until 9.30pm we congregate in the hall. The walls are hung with pictures and collages done by the youth club, interspersed with slogans urging said youth to ‘be positive’, and ‘don’t be a bully’. Along one side of the room are floor-to-ceiling mirrors where we can admire our footwork, or see how a pair of boots goes with a pair of trousers (handy in my case because I do not have a full-length mirror at home). The dancing takes the form of a class, and is led by an ex-Edinburgh policewoman with the patience of a saint and the occasional steely tones of a junior school headmistress. Her charges are drawn from many professions – there are artists, carers, B&B owners, building contractors, journalists. However, the predominant demographic is the female of a certain age and above. Men are rare and valued, and if they are under 50 they are expected to spread their favours around and take a turn with every lady in the room. A gay friend of mine was my dancing partner for a while – he is tall, youngish, good looking and a very bonny dancer, being one of the few men of his generation who can do a waltz turn. As you can imagine he was much in demand. Our loss was the Outer Isles’ gain when he moved to Rousay – the old ladies still get misty-eyed when his name is mentioned.

With a CD playing, (‘Sir James Shand Esquire’ and others) we usually start the evening with a sedatish couple dance, a Gay Gordons, or perhaps a Swedish Masquerade (excellent for posture and balance, pretend you’re the Queen). This gets us warmed up. A few more folk drift in, shedding coats and putting their £1.00 in the saucer. Another couple dance, maybe a waltz, and we’re in the mood for a reel.

The more complicated the dance, the better I like it, although I have a tendency to frown in concentration, which gives the impression I am not enjoying myself at all. It’s like maths for your feet, and you have to be in the right place at the right time for it to work! Amongst our participants there are those who do it right and cluck with disapproval at those who don’t. There are those who have not listened to the instructions and are away in all directions. These are usually the same people who giggle a lot and set the rest of us off until the whole dance descends into chaos. There will be much shoving, shouting, encouraging and grabbing before we can master the Trip to Bavaria or the Black Mountain Reel. But my goodness, when we do dance it all the way through the feeling of exhilaration is wonderful as we all clap each other and beam happily. The formality of dancing is appealing too, the bows, the curtseys, the acknowledging your partner on the chord, and the thanking each other after every dance.

Most female dancers have to dance as a male at some point. It certainly keeps you on your mental toes, reversing what you did last week, leading instead of following and remembering to support your partner’s hand from underneath. It’s hard with the more complicated dances because you can find yourself reversing roles from week to week – I had a struggle with a particular dance due to this, and the teacher kindly read out a poem about the predicament faced by those who ‘learnt it as a wife, but danced it as a man’. One regular took it upon herself to sew purple satin sashes – to be worn by women who were dancing as men, and this makes it easier when doing dances with corners like The Duke of Perth, or ‘The Duck’ as it is fondly known.

After one and a half hours of dancing we stop for a cup of tea and a biscuit. That’s one and a half hours of almost non-stop physical aerobic exercise – and boy do we earn that biscuit (choc bourbon, crunch creams, fancy ones from someone’s Italian holiday). For 20 minutes we drink tea, catch up on news, exchange recipes, get a breath of fresh air, or have a fag. My husband (who does not dance and stays home on Tuesdays) can always tell if the smokers have been there because he can smell it on me. He can also detect a wide range of perfumes, soaps, deodorants and other odours present on my clothing after dancing with a variety of folk. It is not particularly unpleasant, but it does not go unappreciated if one’s dancing partner has put on a clean shirt and brushed their teeth!

There are as many different dancing styles as there are people. Most folk who come have at least some sense of rhythm, but occasionally there are folk whose feet seem to bear no relation whatever to the beat of the music. What, one wonders, are they hearing? My particular bugbear is having my hands gripped too tightly – I prefer something in between vice-like and wet fish. Some folk have warm, dry, capable hands, others have cold and clammy paws.

After tea we resume the dancing, trying new things, practicing old favourites, being sprinkled with fairy dust from teacher’s magic wand, until it is time to finish up with our arms round each other’s waists for the now-traditional Jessie’s Polka. By this time it has gone 9.30pm and we thank each other, thank the teacher, and head out into the cool night air. My five minute walk home is suffused with a warm glow, and I have a bounce in my step and a silly smile on my face. I do not know what it is inside me that is satisfied by the dancing – a secret passion for accordion music? The simple release of serotonin into my brain brought on by exercise? I have certainly built up a formidable stamina – at a wedding in Edinburgh recently the stalwarts of the dance floor were myself, and a group of folk from Lismore – another island community, strangely enough. Those who threw themselves around with abandon were soon exhausted. We who took smaller steps did indeed last much longer. A motto for dancing, and a maxim for life!