Muriel Chaplin

Muriel Chaplin was a dance teacher who ran her own eponymous school and was asked to provide ballroom dancing lessons at the Community Centre in June 1973.

She arrived for her first lesson to find that the large hall had not been cleared of chairs. Flamboyant in speech and determined in nature, she remonstrated with assistant caretaker Albert Tatlock but predictably got nowhere at all with her complaints, especially when she stated that it was such a "menial task". She was initially disappointed when the first turnout was only Hilda Ogden, Ted Loftus and Ernie Bishop, who was waiting for Betty Turpin to join him. Deirdre Hunt pushed Ray Langton to also go along and he made sarcastic comments as Muriel likened holding a partner's waist to gently holding a bird in your hand. Perhaps as an act of revenge, perhaps because she fancied him, she then used Ray as her first partner in a demonstration dance and proceeded to throw him round the floor.

Prior to the next lesson, Ernie checked with her that she wouldn't be using French chalk on the floor as Albert had already objected to the idea. This time round, she told her pupils that she would be concentrating on the waltz before some of her invited pupils from her school would be giving a demonstration of championship ballroom dancing. The street residents were asked to introduce themselves to the guests and a Latin American medley was then danced by Joyce and Dennis. Muriel told the admiring residents that Dennis's workmates at the fishmarket had derided him two years before about his new hobby but they recently all went on a coach to cheer him on at the East Cheshire championships.