Until recently, my parents, Reg and Olive Hunter, wintered in Texas . . . or, to be more precise, just outside Harlingen at an RV park, about an hour or so north of the Mexican border.

Why Texas? They have always loved dancing in all its forms. I recall seeing photos of them as a courting couple in the 1930s, dancing on roller skates. And, as a child,
I remember their many local, and one notable BBC-TV, appearances square dancing with the "Corn Crushers," a demonstration team they organized with their friends in the post-war period. As a young, impressionable nine-year-old, I was so impressed to hear (we didn't have a TV set in those days) that Dad actually executed an "allemande left" and "allemande right" for a whole minute while eating fish and chips out of the Daily Express, without missing a beat . . . or dropping a "battered bit."

What skill! What greasy hands he must have left behind in his path! This was something a young son could really identify with!

So, becoming "Winter Texans" was a natural for them. They, of course, gravitated to the park with the best square dance caller, and before long were highly involved in the almost nightly dances in the local community centre.