Dancing, Decoding and the Imperial Award

Mollie Webb Talks to Ela Drewett

Above: Mollie Webb (far left) with Alicia Markova and Anton Dolin in Casse Noisette, with the Markova Dolin concert group 1949/50

For ISTD Librarian, Mollie Webb, dance has been an enduring part of her life that has brought her joy, freedom and lifelong friends. It all started in 1926, when her mother took her to her first dance class, thinking back to that time Mollie explained: “I started dancing when I was three. I was taken merely because I was an only child and my mother thought it would be good for me to mix with other children. I remember distinctly, even now, that I spent my very first class sitting under the grand piano, crying my eyes out because I couldn’t bear the other little children.”

“I can’t remember what happened after that, but I must have kept going, I remember when I was about nine I went to a proper class taken by Eunice Gardiner who had a school in Whitstable. Once a week she came over to Herne Bay where I was living and took classes in the grand hotel. I used to go there for ballet, tap, acrobatics and a bit of Greek.”

Mollie spent six years with Eunice and over that time her love for dance grew. Her dream was to go to dance college and train to become a dancer and dance teacher. That dream and her schooling were put on hold when World War Two broke out, Mollie said: “I was at boarding school in Kent when the war broke out and my mother was absolutely petrified that the Germans were going to invade immediately and that they’d come into Kent, so she decided that I wasn’t going to stay there. My father had enlisted in the air force and so I was whipped out of school and that was the last school I did – I was still 15. It seemed we had packed the whole house into the car, with me and the dog sitting on all the luggage we trundled off to Wiltshire.”

Mollie’s father, Squadron Leader Paul, worked as a dental surgeon, so the family travelled around much of England where, dad spent time setting up dental practices at various airfields. Eventually they settled in Mulsoe, which is a village near Cranfield Airfield, and were billeted over a little inn. Mollie, who had just finished working as an unofficial farm hand, was feeling restless and rather bored. Her next job was to work as a decoder at Bletchley Park, remembering how it all came about she said: “All these peculiar people used to come in to the inn of an evening to have a drink and my father, of course, was very sociable and used to talk to them. He met this Navel Commander once and he said to him ‘I suppose you don’t know of any job that my daughter could do?’ because by that time I was so bored that I just couldn’t bear it any longer. Commander Tandy said, ‘why doesn’t she come and join the Foreign Office.’ So at 16, there I was, on my way to Bletchley Park.”

Mollie worked as a decoder for the Foreign Office until the end of the war in 1945. She spent a year at Bletchley Park until the diplomatic section was transferred to Berkeley Street in London. It was here that Mollie was able to resume her dancing and was given the opportunity to carry on after the war was over, she said: “I went from Bletchley Park to work in Berkeley Street and round the corner from the office was the Cone School so I went for evening classes. I was taught by the most marvellous people, Joyce Mackie, Betty Davis and Marion Knight, who I think must have taken it in turns to take the office girls classes, we were quite dreadful – I think their hearts probably sank when they came in and saw us! That’s how I met Grace Cone and she asked me if I’d like to go to London College when it started in 1945. We were their guinea pigs, the curriculum was developed on the first few years intake. I think we could have taken an osteopathy exam for all the anatomy and physiology they pushed into us! But I think that it is absolutely essential that people should have an idea of what is going on inside as well as out. In the early days so much damage was done to poor little children being taught in the wrong way.”

In her final year at London College Mollie’s father died. Mollie remembers what happened: “When my father died I didn’t have the money to pay for my last year of college, so I went to Miss Gracie and told her what happened and that I would have to leave. “Don’t worry dear, don’t worry” and she gave me the whole of my last year free! I only danced for a very short time with Markova and Dolin in their concert performances. The ballet mistress was Marion Knight, a marvellous teacher, but terrifying in class. One evening after a performance Marion came up behind me, and I thought, oh no what have I done, but she said: you danced very well tonight, and I thought this is it, she’s said something good! That was a high point for me. But when Miss Gracie asked me to teach at Tring Park for her, I felt I had to go, after her great kindness of college.”

Having first spent time teaching dance and then as a Librarian at Middlesex University, Mollie was the perfect person when the ISTD wanted to set up a specialist dance library to cover all the faculties. Interestingly, Mollie’s time spent decoding with the Foreign Office had given her many skills that she would find invaluable in setting up and running a library, she said: “It was this lateral thinking business, you don’t just think in the box you go out in all different directions, so if I am looking for anything in the Library I think well maybe I can go in from a different angle to find something. And patience too, you have to have a lot of patience when you’re decoding as you try goodness knows how many things and they don’t work!”

Since it’s inception in 1990 Mollie has gradually built the library up book by book and now it houses a wealth of knowledge about almost every aspect of dance you can think of, Mollie said: “We have about 4500 books now. However, I wish Dance Books hadn’t moved as I used to go in there when I was first setting the library up and rarely would I come out without anything. They were so helpful and they had an amazing second hand book section where I managed to pick up most of the out of print books that were needed. So this little library is really very unique as it covers all the faculties and it has a great many out of print titles.”
The library has proved to be an invaluable source for anyone wishing to research dance. Mollie can often be seen helping students with their research or collecting archival material. Most will agree that it is the shear diversity of subject that makes the ISTD library so unique. While talking about her favourite books in the library, Mollie said: “I think that my favourite book would have to be Notes Upon Dancing by Carlo Blasis. It was published in 1847 and, I think, it was one of Mr Cyril Beaumont’s books. It’s an extraordinary book, Carlo Blasis was very much a leading light and his thoughts and notes on dancing are certainly something to read.”

“I’ve also got a whole lot of little books that people used to put in their pockets when they went to social dances to remind them of steps, they are quite early, I think one of them is from 1819, so they are very precious – I’ve got them all in a box file in the library and only let people look at photocopies. The other thing is a first edition copy of Mr Beaumont’s translation of the Arbeau’s Orchesography.
Mollie was the recipient of the Imperial Award in March 2008 for services to the Society, many people are so thankful and appreciative of Mollie and what she has done for dance and the ISTD over the years. Mollie, however, is slightly more reticent and humble on the subject of the award, she said: “On hearing that I was to be a recipient of the Imperial Award I was shocked, completely shocked. I kept looking at that list in the HQ reception with all these amazing people, like Victor Silvester, all these names that I’ve known forever and I kept thinking: ‘I haven’t really done anything’. I suppose putting together this library for everyone to use was an achievement, I can’t think of anything else really. It is a tremendous honour and you couldn’t want anything else, could you, except knowing that other people appreciate you.”

The ISTD Library is open on Monday and Thursday from 10:30am – 3:30pm, please ring Mollie on 0207 377 1577 to book an appointment.

Coming soon: read the full transcript of Mollie’s interview

Ela Drewett
In the next edition of DANCE read an interview with Dancesport Imperial Award Winner, Richard Hunt.