Julie Welch

DANGEROUS DANCING charts the progress of the Sweet Fanny Addams all-female dance group from obscurity to fame. From Millie's death in 1990, the novel goes back over two decades in the lives of 11 dancers - their friendships and bitchery, their disastrous men and seedy provincial tours and their moments of glory.

Award-winning writer Julie Welch tells of her time spent at an all-girls boarding school in Suffolk in the early 1960s. This wonderfully evocative memoir portrays a place of arcane rules and happenings, when the headmistress and the Head of Science raced each other on public roads in their sports cars; when fire practice involved abseiling down the school walls, and when having meringues for tea instead of plain cake was branded 'disgraceful'. There are vivid memories of midnight feasts in the dorm, bizarre rituals, frumpy uniform, mad teachers, pranks, 'pashes' on older girls and NO BOYS WHATSOEVER. As the social morals of post-war Britain collide with those of the decadent 1960s, Julie and her fellow pupils discover Radio Caroline, fashion and the facts of life at the same time as playing lacrosse derbies, attending classical music concerts and sea-bathing.

The years spent at Felixstowe College made a lasting impression on the girls who boarded there. Amidst all the fun, deeply emotional attachments were made, with some girls - whose parents were remote or absent - finding support from their classmates that they didn't get at home. Julie's story is full of character and charm and serves as both a memoir and a fascinating social history of a way of English life as lived by 'young ladies' some 50 years ago.

When John White was killed by a bolt of lightning in 1964, the football world was rocked by the tragedy. White was just 27 years of age.

Nicknamed the ‘Ghost’ for the way that he could drift into space undetected, White played inside-forward for the great double-winning Tottenham Hotspur side of the early sixties. British football was entering a golden period and Bill Nicholson’s free-flowing Spurs side was right at the forefront. White himself was on the cusp of greatness. Even alongside giants of the game like Dave Mackay and Danny Blanchflower, he stood out as a playmaker with incredible vision and touch.

White lifted the European Cup Winners' Cup for Spurs (the first European trophy won by any British side) and gained 22 caps for Scotland, but he was also a family man. Six months before he died, his beloved wife Sandra, gave birth to their second child, a son called Rob.

Rob White never knew his father. The man who was known by hundreds of thousands of football fans across the country, was a complete stranger to him. The Ghost of White Hart Lane is the result of interviews with his father’s teammates, followers, and family members. Within these pages Rob White and Julie Welch have built up a portrait, not only of a brilliant and gifted young man, but also of a lost era.

For some years Julie Welch edited the magazine of the Long Distance Walkers Association. And she became more and more intrigued, even obsessed, with the highlight (others might say nadir) of the long-distance-walking calendar: the annual Hundred. Walking a hundred miles, non-stop, within 48 hours - watching the sun come up twice...So eventually she decided she had to have a go herself. This is the story of what happened: of the 50-mile walks she took part in to build up to the big day; the singular, admirable, sometimes eccentric and above all tough as old boots members of the long-distance fraternity, and finally (as far as she can remember) recollects the full wonder, pain, horror, exhilaration, even hallucination (from groups of nuns to children's roadside picnics at 4 in the morning) of walking a Hundred.

Welch examines just what it is that drives 30,000 people to get up one morning in April and punish their bodies in a race they know they have no hope of winning. A full range of participants have been interviewed from pros to ex-alcoholics.

A funny, poignant and candid story of how a middle-aged couch potato transformed herself into a marathon runner, an epic cyclist and came to terms with herself and her very odd family into the bargain. Well, at rising 50 it's about time - and if Julie Welch can do it, then so can we all.

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