Local Face: Gill Dean

Gill Dean is a natural dancer. She also sings but it is in movement that she likes to express herself and derives the most pleasure. As Gillian Stubbs, she grew up in Hanwell, Ealing, where, at the age of seven, she started dance classes with an ex-Tiller girl: high kicks and high precision and all the organisation and self-discipline that entails. Gill just loved it.

When Gill arrived at secondary school, she discovered the Laban School of dance movement in a PE lesson. The self expression and mime content seemed very natural to Gill and she was allowed to develop her gift for choreography in school productions.

Gill auditioned for and was awarded a place at a Laban Dance Centre but there were no grants for non-vocational courses nor student loans in those days so instead, Gill trod the conventional path of secretarial college which led first to a job with Mercedes Benz and later to the London Underground. She decided that free travel on the underground was a better perk than the possibility of some discount on a big car! It gave her the opportunity to travel almost daily from Acton to Covent Garden to the Dance Studio in Floral Street, now better known as the Pineapple Studio. There she could book in for 3 classes a night and rub shoulders with Pan’s People, Hot Gossip and all the talent auditioning for London shows.

How exciting, then, to be offered a job as secretary to the Director of the Museum of Transpori at Covent Garden, just as it was being set up. One of the new graduate recruits was Malcolm Dean who was to become Gill’s husband and they set up home in Ealing. Here, children were bom, starting with Patrick and Jessica. Malcolm’s work was with the Metropolitan Line so getting home from Harrow or Amersham could be complicated. They solved the problem by moving to Great Missenden in 1984, Gregory being 10 days old to be followed in two years by William.

Gill was no longer dancing regularly although she had noticed that she led any toddler action songs and rhymes at events involving the children. At Patrick’s Year 7 end of school play Gill was not very impressed with the overall movement so when the next school request for help arrived with Jessica, Gill volunteered to help Mrs. Kerr and has been choreographing for her ever since, even through a change of school for Mrs. Kerr and a change of village for Gill.

When William was still a babe in arms, Gill heard of a new project starting in Great Missenden. It was called Lighthouse and it was to happen in the first week of the summer holiday so in 1987, Gill became the first leader of the Toddler Group held in the Baptist Church Hall. Since then she has never missed a year although she has looked after the 5’s and 10’s and once ran a Dance Workshop. Now she looks after the 7’s.

Patrick became friendly with a boy whose parents were leading lights in Hyde Heath Old Time Music Hall so in 1989 Gill began to tread the boards again and really hasn’t looked back since. They tend to be a roving group and Gill’s roving talent has led her to become teacher of Maypole dancing at The Lee County First School, a feeder of Wendover Middle School.

So it was that in June 1993 the Dean family moved to Wendover. It took a year before Gill moved from driving to Prestwood Methodist Church to walking to Wendover Free Church but it was Gill who created their recent successful Victorian evening. Gill spent much of November with the Hyde Heath Old Time Music Hall group singing and dancing. They had a Millennium party where Gill also performed.

Now, in the year 2000, Gill is tuming her considerable energy to another project. David Adams is coordinating “Hopes and Dreams” a musical for the Millennium which will be performed in Wendover on the weekend of 20th May, 2000. Gill is choreographer. She has already started rehearsing the line dance in Wendover Christian Centre at 12 noon every Sunday. The idea is that anyone who knows the dance will be able to join in at the performance, rather like singing at an Old Time Music Hall. in fact audience participation adds to the success of this project. Anyone who would like to join in the fun, there are many small tasks to be done as well as the larger ones, forms are available from St Mary’s or St Annes or telephone David Adams on 622994.