Greenock ballroom dancer tells of her remarkable life

Frances Millar, who is now 93, came from humble beginnings to later spend 14 years with special branch in Hong Kong in the 1950s and 1960s. But this is just one chapter in the amazing story of a youngster who had no option but to leave school at 15 to support her mother and four siblings.

She later went on to become an award-winning ballroom dancer and set up the Greenock Amateur Dance Club along with her handsome husband Jim in the late 40s.

She married her sweetheart in Mearns Street Church in 1950, with the ceremony attracting big crowds because they were such well-known dancers.

It was so busy that police had to direct traffic.

They then jetted off together for a new life four years later in Hong Kong, where Jim worked in the Taikoo Sugar Refinery while Frances worked her way up in special branch.

Pensioner Frances has lived in the village of Titchfield in the district of Fareham in Hampshire for the past 30 years but often visits her nephew Hugh Meek in Wemyss Bay.

During once recent stay, the Tele sat down with Frances to hear about her memories of fascinating times overseas and much nearer home.

She said: “It was marvellous in Hong Kong.

“You had to work hard but you had your own servants, which we weren’t used to!

“Jim taught the Chinese to boil sugar and I started off as a copy typist.

“It was a wonderful life.

“I used to do courier work and take documents onto police launches.

“I was meeting people from different parts of Hong Kong and mixing with Portuguese and Chinese people.” But this was also an era of political unrest and at times Hong Kong was a dangerous place to be.

Frances explained: “We were there during the cultural revolution, when communists were trying to take over Hong Kong.

“I went to bed at night with my suitcase and passport.

“I was a class 1 confidential assistant and if there was a curfew on, I had to stay in the headquarters until it was stood down and then I used to go home in a launch boat.

“I think of the people in Hong Kong then as pioneers — the colony was being built up again, the trams were running and everyone was working and different companies were coming in.” Her husband Jim quickly adapted to his new life and was soon fluent in Cantonese.

Frances said: “He learned to speak it because there were communist troubles and sit-ins in the factory, and you needed to know what was going on.” Frances says her life abroad was a million miles away from her upbringing in the east end.

She said: “It was the 1950s and you could go shopping late at night and the whole place was lit up like Blackpool.

“I remember it was 1am in the morning and I heard this lovely music, Nat King Cole, coming from a radiogram in a shop.

“We ended up buying the radiogram and the shop gave us a copy of the record.

“Two workmen carried the radiogram home 11 miles in a rickshaw.” Frances says her time in Hong Kong was an unforgettable life-changing experience.

She said: “Hong Kong was an education.

“I lived with the Chinese, their language, their culture and customs.

“The people I mixed with were from all over the world, British, Canadian and Australian nurses who were interred by the Japanese during the occupation of the colony.

“One nurse called Margaret Smith told me she suffered beriberi and only managed to keep herself alive because she was a nurse and took insulin.

“She married her husband — Hughie from Port Glasgow — in the camp.

“There were people from all walks of life in the camp.” Frances was the eldest child of local couple Hugh and Isabella McColl.

She had two brothers, Hugh and Pat and two sisters, Rose and Isabel, who lived first in Waverley Lane, then in Corlic Street in the east end.

Despite doing well at St Columba’s in Peat Road and being destined for university place, Frances left school at 15 after her father died.

Frances said: “My father knew he was dying and he said ‘it’s up to you Frances, you have to be in charge, you help your mother’.

“I grew up very fast — I was older than my years.

“I had to provide food for my family.” She then landed a job with councillor and JP Bob Wales in his grocer shop in Ann Street and learned to drive to chauffeur him around.

She said: “I worked there from the age of 15 until I was 28. I was treated like one of the family.

“He was an old rogue, that was the way they lived then.

“I was given all the ration books and had to work them out. If there was any trouble at any of the shops, if they weren’t making money, and people were basically helping themselves, then I was sent to deal with it.” It was a era of rationing during wartime and money was tight.

But thanks to her job, Frances was able to bring home coveted items such as tinned ham, carnation milk and peaches for her family.

Hoarding such items was forbidden, however.

One day, when Frances and her brother Pat raced home — fearful their secret food supplies would be discovered — they witnessed the terrible aftermath of a land mine in Corlic Street.

She said: “It was terrible. You could see all the bodies.

“Pat kept saying ‘don’t look, keep walking’ — all these people were dead.” Through her job, Frances also met legendary comedian Chic Murray and he asked her and her friend Etta Crawford to babysit for him and his wife Maidie.

Frances said: “I used to love him coming into the shop.

“He was marvellous and so was she. She was very kind.

“We got 2/6, two shillings and six pence, and a great big feast of buns and tea and he kept us in stitches — we also got free tickets to see him at the Empire.” The glamour of ballroom dancing was an escape for men returning from six years of fighting abroad as well as those left struggling with shortages at home, and Frances played a key role in the local scene.

She explained: “We set up the Greenock Amateur Dance Club in 1947.

“People came back from the war and went to different dance halls like the Co-op and Cragburn, all the lads from the war.” Frances, her husband Jim and a few like-minded individuals — including pals Willie Gibson, Tommy Beckett, Irene Barber and Margaret Elliott — set up the club in the firefighter hall in Ingleston Street.

They got help the owner of the premises, and the town council.

The club set up a league and competed against other clubs in Dunoon, Falkirk, Glasgow and Paisley.

They took it very seriously and drafted in a dance teacher from Glasgow and a Cha Cha champion, Bill Irvine, to give lessons.

Frances recalled: “We won so many cups and trophies that my mother-in-law had a display cabinet full of them.

“The dancing was marvellous. You had a laugh and you mixed with different people.

“Ballroom dancing in the town hall was wonderful, with women in lovely dresses.

“Material was hard to get.” The couple subsequently moved to Vancover in Canada but Jim couldn’t get a job there then his mother took ill, so he and Frances returned to Scotland in 1971.

Jim worked at Walkers Sugar Refinery in Greenock and the pair settled in Kilmacolm before moving to Titchfield down south, where they continued their passion for ballroom by attending tea dances.

Sadly Jim died 10 years ago and Frances has also battled cancer.

She came through weeks of radium therapy, major surgery and a painful skin graft and has bravely bounced back.

She said: “My nephew Hugh nursed me for six weeks. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him.

“I’ve had an interesting life and I wouldn’t change it for anything.

“We had bad times and we had wonderful times.” Hugh, 62, lives with his wife Irene, 59, and they have a daughter Claire-Louise, 33.

He said: “I love Aunt Frances to bits.

“I admire her and it’s amazing how she got over the cancer.”