I was listening to the (terrible) radio in the gym (Capital FM) the other day and a remix of a long distant song was played.

The remix featured a bunch of "tunes", courtesy of some well-known DJ. But the lead track was Rhythm Is A Dancer, created and recorded in 1980something by Snap. Sorry. Snap! 

Rhythm is a dancer

It's a source of passion

You can feel it everywhere...

And it goes on.

Whenever I hear this song, I have a brief but enjoyable flashback.

My aunt and uncle in Slough's living room.

My aunt, uncle, father, grandmother, grandfather, arranged in chairs on one side of the room.

My sister, aged approx eight or nine, dancing solo for endless minutes, rave style but without a single fluorescent rod for comfort, clad in some hideous best-we-could-do-in-place-of-Lycra ensemble on the other side of the room. And it was a short room. The song went on and on and on. Monotonous. Indulgent. Sister's face a picture of exquisite why-did-you-make-me-do-this? But enough of a sense of theatre even at that tender age to know that you cannot interrupt the show.

(Actually, shock, just checked and it was 1992. So poor sister was, best case scenario, 13 years old.)

I can't remember the show title. Something self-penned based on a fairy tale I think. My two cousins had also been pressed into action. The annual festive "treat" for the grown ups. 

Then I flash forward. Fourteen years. The curtain call for the Caucasian Chalk Circle. My stupendous idea that the entire (substantial) cast dance for the entire think it was Dire Straits track. The elongated painstaking "dancing" that resulted. The mutiny that resulted from that. And the refreshing reminder of a lesson poorly learnt first time around. Or a refreshing reminder of my enduring optimism.

To this day, I thank you, my little sister, for keepin' on dancing.