The Brent Magazine issue 87 February 2009

Secret history

Ballroom Brent

Ballroom dancing is now enjoyed by millions and makes hit television shows - all thanks to a man from Wembley.

Any Brent resident tuning into the television show 'Strictly Come Dancing' might not know that the founding father of modern ballroom dancing was raised in Wembley.

Victor Silvester was born in 1900 to JWP Silvester, the vicar of St John's Church in Wembley, and his wife Kate.

He had four sisters and an older brother. His father also served on Wembley Council while being a vicar, and his mother was active as the president of the Wembley branch of the Mothers' Union and the Women's Institute.

In his autobiography 'Dancing Is My Life' he recalled how he and his brother once dropped conkers onto the top hats of prominent Sunday church-goers. One dignitary was Sir Titus Barham who would put a gold sovereign in the collection plate. In those days he said Wembley was a village, and the vicarage a "rambling, red-brick house".

In 1919 a dance hostess employed him as a partner for unaccompanied ladies at a dance hall in Kensington.The pay was £1 a week. Despite a slightly bumbling start, he embraced dancing and with Phyllis Clarke won the World Championships in 1922.

However, this new career did not please the stern vicar in Wembley. His father called him a "worthless gigolo" who threw away the chance to be a field marshal!

After opening a dance school with his wife Dorothy, whom he married in 1922, he formed his own ballroom orchestra in 1935.

The Victor Silvester Strict Tempo Dance Orchestra first broadcast on the BBC in 1937 and with the BBC Dancing Club in the 1940s his reputation grew. His refrain "slow, slow, quick, quick, slow" at the start of the show became well-known. Later he appeared regularly on television's 'Come Dancing'. By the 1960s his records had sold millions and were played everywhere. He was a scholar of ballroom and his book 'Modern Ballroom Dancing' set down many of the rules by which we know it today, and its print run ran to 50 editions.

Victor kept up his links with Wembley. In 1940 his band played in Wembley, then in 1953 his ten-piece orchestra played at the town hall and Victor himself donated £60 to the mayor's charity.

He returned again in 1957 to the official opening of a ballroom at the Odeon in Wembley High Road, which had been named in his honour.A family member lived in Wembley until 1956 when his sister Joyce moved from Sylvester Road to the South Coast with her husband. His father died in 1946, but his mother lived in Crawford Avenue,Wembley, until her death in 1951.Victor Silvester received an OBE in 1961, and died in 1978. Millions of ballroom fans marked his passing.

'Dancing Is My Life' by Victor Silvester (Heinemann; London; 1958) is in Brent Archive. To borrow books and music by him visit www.brent.gov.uk/libraries