In 2025, Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party hosted seven dance parties and two ticketed dances, attended three outside dances and a ballroom dancing competition, and promoted umpteen dance lessons as well as nights out with the Edinburgh Jazz’n’Jive Club. We were guests at a tea party held in our honour, at which Mr McLean sang a song about us and I gave a paper.
It was a year of searching for new ballroom dancing teachers, opening our regular group to the wider Catholic community, and striving for gender parity. My hostess heart expands with pride when young men flock to our events but would be more tranquil if an equal number of young ladies followed suit.
It was also a year of experiments, of dances tried and discarded, and–for a few of us–dashing around town after work or on weekends for Lindy Hop classes. Here is what it looked like:
January
Ceilidh comparisons I began the year by comparing Edinburgh Old Year’s End ceilidhs, having gone to a much better one on December 30, 2023 than on December 31, 2024. I concluded that the best plan of all would be to “bring a large party of friends oneself to event–or have one’s own dance.”
Scottish Country Dancing: A branch of the Royal Scottish Country Dancing Society meets weekly near my home, so I decided to join them. I found myself the youngest–and clumsiest–person there. The learning curve was too steep for someone with a full-time job, so I withdrew.
Tango: Friends arrived from Poland for a tango brunch, during which I took care of their children and watched them shuffle mournfully around Edinburgh’s Counting House in close embrace. My thoughts echoed those alleged of St. Pius X.
February
Edinburgh Jazz & Jive Club: I celebrated my saint’s day by giving a pizza party and transporting my guests by taxi to Heriot’s Rugby Club for some swing-dancing. It was the first of eight Friday night visits to the Church of Jazz this year. Live traditional jazz, amazing dancers, and a sprung wooden floor: it’s the best place I know to put Lindy Hop and Charleston lessons into action.
Mrs McLean’s Waltzing Party Workshop 1: Instead of spacing out the dance parties one-a-month, this year we massed them to work towards a particular goal: shining at the Eastertide and Michaelmas Dances. At this first workshop, our waltz was worked on by a certain professional Miss F. Unfortunately, after that she never again took my calls. Boo. I reviewed The Gay Gordons and The Dashing White Sergeant.
March
MMWP Workshop 2: Cathy and Mike taught us 8-count Lindy Hop, and when I say “us,: I mean 11 men and 4 women. (Our Workshop 1 numbers were a healthier 10: 7.) It was up to me again to review The Gay Gordons and the St Bernard’s Waltz.
Lent: We don’t meet during Lent. To everything there is a season (Ecc.3:1).
April
MMWP Workshop 3: Pope Francis died on Easter Monday, the date scheduled for our third workshop. After a flurry of phone calls and emails, I cancelled the event. Incidentally, when Francis was first elected, our then-choir director/organist composed a tango–inspired tune forPro Pontifice. When the mills of Franciscus began grinding traditionalists slowly but exceeding fine, the schola was asked to retire it.
The Eastertide Dance: Yes, okay. This is really an EASTER dance, as it always falls on Easter Friday, so I need to change the name. Meanwhile, it was supremely fun. It cost £1020 to put on, and we made £1015 back in ticket sales and donations. There was a leftover bottle of wine, so I calculated that we were in the black–for the first time ever–by £1.75. We had a record attendance (65, including musicians), and a proper volunteer kitchen manager–Madeleine–to whom I am still grateful. Please come back from Australia; we need you.
ESDS Tea Dance: A few of us strode down to Stockbridge after Mass on Low Sunday for the Edinburgh Swing Dance Society’s tea dance. (“Did you come from church?” asked one of their flirts of one of our swells.) Mr McLean made a sensation by arriving near the end in his powered wheelchair.
May
Lindy Hop Workshop: Swing-dance teachers sometimes offer Saturday workshops, and two of us MMWPers went to one in May. It was called “Dips, Tricks and Steals.” These added some pizzazz to our usual swing-outs, and naturally the idea of stealing other people’s dance partners appealed to us. As entrance to MMWP is already free, I thought hard all year about what I could offer to attract more women. It’s not like we can burst into the Cathedral’s Young Adult Group meetings (Tuesdays at 7 PM) and carry them away. Or can we?
Too Strictly Ballroom: I went with two brave companions to a long-established ballroom class evening to learn the slow foxtrot. The teachers, former champions, wore clothes I thought bizarre but were in fact completely appropriate to the weird world of modern competitive British ballroom dancing. However, their teaching belonged to the “just copy what I do” school of thought, so we did not go back.
June
MMWP Collegiate Cormorant Party: MMWP Workshop 3 was bumped to June, and I asked Mike and Cathy to teach us a fast swing dance with an unfortunate name.
The word “shag” has many meanings: tobacco, long pile in carpets, a member of the Gulosus aristotelis family. However, it is most commonly used in the UK in a manner not suited to mixed, let alone Catholic, company. Perhaps this is why we had a turnout of only six, and two of the ladies were late.
In despair, I looked up Gulosus aristotelis in Polish, Scotland’s most commonly used non-Scottish tongue, and it is kormoran czubaty (“or kormoran, if the context is clear”). A shag and a cormorant are not the same thing, but I’m happy to make the substitution, as it is such a very useful dance.
That said, I sprained my knee, and it is still not 100%.
September
MMWP Committee Meeting: More informal than ever, this was just to review our plans for the Michaelmas Dance and the three preceding workshops.
Cathedral Youth Group Raid: This was not a sanitised version of a Rubens or Poussin scene, but merely the announcement of the Michaelmas Dance and our workshops over the Youth Group WhatsApp. It eventually resulted in the appearance of more gentlemen, more ladies and—answer to a literal prayer—a newly-arrived-in-Edinburgh Catholic ballroom dance enthusiast who agreed to become our new waltzing teacher.
MMWP Michaelmas Workshop 1: Our very first waltz teacher ever returned to work on our skills. He was perturbed to discover only four ladies among thirteen gentlemen. As usual, the men were forced to dance in shifts. Our ceilidh teacher reviewed The Gay Gordons, The Dashing White Sergeant, and Strip the Willow.
MMWP Michaelmas Workshop 2: Our new waltz teacher taught the close-change and reverse turn to eight ladies and eleven gentlemen and (for as long as they could stand it) a little boy and an even smaller girl. Our substitute ceilidh teacher reviewed The Canadian Barn Dance, The Flying Scotsman, and The Virginia Reel.
MMWP Michaelmas Workshop 3: Our new waltz teacher couldn’t come until late, so I had to review the box step and natural turn myself. Mike and Cathy came to teach the 8-count Lindy Hop again. Our ceilidh teacher taught the St Bernard’s Waltz. Gender ratio: 7 women and a little girl to 11 men and a little boy. Needless to say, the girl and boy kept out of the rotation, for no-one else was short enough to dance with them.
The Michaelmas Dance: This was also supremely fun, but two big families couldn’t make it, so our numbers were down. Also, we had more musicians than ever, which was awesome, but our expenses went up. In short the dance cost £1186.29 and our ticket sales and donation did not cover this, so we dropped into the red again. More disturbing, however, was the sight of the professional jazz singer from Canada washing the dishes by herself. Please come back from Australia, Madeleine.
Swing dance evening classes: Sometimes a man just wants to learn how to dance without having to bend the knee to the gender revolution. The only way to do this in Edinburgh, without slowly gathered inside knowledge, is to bring a woman to class and then–if the spectre of male followers in the rotation looms–refuse to dance with anyone but her. However, there are few women both sympathetic to this counter-revolutionary desire and fanatical enough to travel great Edinburghian distances on work nights. And that’s why I took approximately a million swing-dance classes from September to mid-December.
OCTOBER
MMWP Tea Party: A kind pastor of souls invited MMWP to tea. To add structure to the event, I wrote a short(ish) lecture on the history of social dancing in Edinburgh, which you can read here. Despite this, the fifteen of us—including Mr McLean, who somehow managed to ascend the staircase—had fun.
NOVEMBER
Edinburgh University Ballroom Dancing competition: Our new waltzing teacher was partnering a beginner waltz competitor, and so three of us went to the contest to cheer him on. The assembled waltzers were very graceful indeed, but we’re never dancing that close. Also, cha-cha is not for us. Finally, why so few men?
St Andrew’s Eve Ceilidh: Four Catholic ladies and four Catholic gentlemen met up at this external event on Edinburgh’s Candlemaker Row and danced up a storm in honour of Scotland’s patron saint. You can read more about it here.
DECEMBER
MMWP Gaudete Sunday: This was a lovely finish to our in-house dance parties for the year. Our new waltzing teacher was joined by another Catholic ballroom dancing veteran to improve our moves. Our usual ceilidh teacher and another reviewed the Eightsome and Virginia Reels. The company was composed of eight gentlemen and seven ladies (and a visiting priest), and you can read more about that here.
Night Afore Hogmany Ceilidh with The Big Shoogle: In my end is my beginning, as said Mary Queen of Scots, for I took my own advice in planning an Old Year’s End ceilidh outing for my visiting mother and sister and me. In short, I picked an event I knew should be good, told MMWP all about it, sent invitations, links and reminders, and schemed for gender parity. The result was that our band of Catholic social dancers swelled to ten (six ladies and four gentlemen), and we danced up and down and around an ex-church with a friendly (for Edinburgh), equally international, throng.
The gender parity issue didn’t matter that much, for strangers asked both our ladies and our gentlemen to dance, and my Aged P excused herself from dancing after puffing through a minute or two. Still, I hold to the belief that if you want to be sure of dancing, be you male or be you female, make sure you invite opposite sex friends to a dance.
The Big Shoogle band famously loves to leaven traditional tunes with rock-and-roll riffs, often with funny results. And this year, after Strip the Willow had been danced, and Auld Lang Syne had been sung, The Big Shoogle burst unabashedly into one of Scotland’s unofficial anthems, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)”. Thus, members of MMWP really let our hair down and did what we otherwise do not sanction and danced together to rock-and-roll. Nobody tell Dr. Kwasniewski. 😉
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