I’m in the process of writing a short story where some of the scenes takes place in a posh hotel on the south coast of Britain in 1928. My protagonist and his wife are from the lower upper-class (country gentry) and staying in hotel suitable for their class. After dinner they are having coffee and dancing – but where?? AFAIK dancing halls were venues specifically made for this purpose and frequented by people of all classes (well, maybe mostly middle and lower). In a hotel, at that time, what would a place, where my couple could dance be called? Would they also have dinner there - or would the hotel have a restaurant and someplace else for evening entertainment?
And… What was the deal with dancers hired by the hotel to entertain guests? Were they common - and in what classes of hotels would they be so? (such a person is ‘the body’ in the Sayers novel 'Whose carcase?) I’ve read about ‘taxi-dancers’ but I believe they were mostly working in proper dance-halls, not hotels.
I’ve always assumed from Christie and Sayers novels that good quality hotels would have a ballroom or a dance floor adjacent to the dining room. I’ve also assumed that the hired dancers were on staff, but were not paid per dance - that would be a “taxi-dancer”, which would be “low”. The staff dancers were there to demonstrate fancy ballroom dancing, and also to dance with people who didn’t have a partner.
BTW, I think you mean to refer to “Have his Carcase”. Sayers’ first novel was “Whose Body?”
You might also want to check out “The Body in the Library” by Christie, which also deals with hotel dancers.
Hollywood director Billy Wilder worked for a few months in 1920s as a “tea dancer” at the Hotel Eden in Berlin. He later wrote a series of articles about it, titled “Waiter, Bring Me a Dancer: The Life of a Gigolo”.
Ah, I knew my 1930-edition of “Baedecker’s London and its environs” would come in useful sooner or later
From a list of hotels:
Fromt the list, dancing seems much more common at the expensive hotels, but there’s dancing at some of the more modest ones as well.
From a section captioned “Resturants. Luncheon and Tea Rooms”:
And from “Woman’s Own Book of the Home”, published in London in 1931:
I’m not sure which social class this book is aimed at, it lists advice on everything from manuring the lawn to how to adress royalty in writing, but I’d guess middle class/lower middle class. It’s got a lot of cooking recipies, so the intended audience is presumably not so rich that the kitchen is a foreign territory run by cooks and kitchen maids.
Thanks for your answers Exactly what I needed and googling something like this turned out to be rather difficult. Besides, I’ve gotten a few, new ideas as well.
I love books og that kind. Really fascinating to read about how people lived. Some of it seems so very strange even though it’s not so many years ago.
I think you’re right about middle class, because those books were AFAIK an entirely middle class phenomenon. Striving to make oneself look better is the curse of the middle class.
They definitily seem to be aimed at the middle class. I have several “women handbooks” from the '30s, '40s and '50s. One is about how to dress well. It’s quite like the contemporary books on dressing well, except for the rather authoritative tone - like the very unforgiving illustration on why women with wide hips should not wear ‘slacks’.
Isn’t ‘The Body in the Library’ that story with that ‘artistic’ young man who holds loud parties to the contempt of the village? And isn’t it the one where the colonel is initially accused of having an illicit liaison with the victim (and of her murder)?
Afraid it is, old chap.