GALLERY: Marshall Mount old time dance celebrates 60 years

One belongs to George McDonald, the founder of the dances, clearing his dining room at Marshall Mount House in the 1920s to make way for the local dairy community to come and dance.

A strong Methodist, he was the originator of the strong values - no alcohol and never any smoking allowed inside - that persist to the present day.

Dances later moved to the school house, where the desks would be unscrewed. Children would polish the floor by covering it in sawdust and kerosene and then pulling one another over it on hessian sugar bags.

Finally, after farmer Hughie Stevenson donated half an acre, the Chittick family donated a cow, and others raised money to a total of £627, the hall was built.

The other portrait depicts Arthur Bowley, who played at the dances since the 1930s, and founded the legendary Marshall Mount Merry Makers when the hall opened.

He played for 50 years, and was awarded an OAM for his services to music.

Though still alive in 2003, he was too sick to play his piano accordion, and died in 2006, aged 93.

The Merry Makers and their musical descendants (including Illawarra folk legend David de Santi) still play the dances, whose names are written on boards to avoid confusion.

They are reminders of another era - the Boston Two Step, Brown Jug Polka, Gypsy Tap, La Bomba, Oxford Waltz, Schottische, the Quick Step, St Bernard's Waltz and the Veleta Waltz.

Then, after supper, the women leave the washing-up half done to let their hair down to the macarena, the nutbush or the chicken dance.

Walk into Marshall Mount Hall and it is easy to make the mistake that this is a place where time will always stand still.

Outside, the hall is still surrounded by the lush dairy country unchanged since settlement, that used to characterise the southern Illawarra from Berkeley to Berry.

Inside, the dark wooden floor is smoothed and polished by thousands of pairs of feet that have danced the boards since the hall opened in 1953.

"Social dances were held at Marshall Mount House in earlier times and, in 1934, regular dances were introduced to the school," read a statement released for the 40th birthday, in 1993.

"The tradition of the dance, including the dances, programme, MC and supper, has remained relatively unchanged over the years and has become renowned for the bridging of the generation gap with attendance by both young and old.

"It is estimated that over 150,000 patrons have passed through the doors and ventured onto the dance floor over the past 40 years."

Tonight marks the 60th anniversary of dances in the hall and up to 300 people are expected, but the future is much less certain than the past.

Even since the 50th anniversary, much has changed.

Similar dances at Corrimal, Robertson and Avoca have passed into history, joining many others from Shellharbour to Burrawang, Jamberoo to Kangaroo Valley.

Where there were still five foundation members alive in 2003, there is now just one - Letitia Dawes, 92, who grew up on a nearby farm but who now lives in Albion Park.

"We have serious thoughts about the future," said former president John Hambly.

"The people who come are mainly older, so you don't ask them if they want to join the committee, and the younger ones don't want to make a commitment.

"They don't want to make a couple of trays of cakes to bring up on a Saturday night.

"When we started to come, none of these people ever refused to join the committee.

"The generation before us went out very slowly. When we finish, it's looking grim."

The committee of organisers once numbered 65 and is now down to 22, all in their 70s except one couple, who are in their 60s.

They mow the lawns, bake the cakes, take the tickets, do the accounts, maintain the hall and ensure that, when the last dance happens, it will be at Marshall Mount Hall.

So what keeps these merry makers going?

Passion for the old-time values of community, friendship and service for the greater good.

Take Hambly. His last dance was 14 months ago, when he had a stroke. Now, he becomes giddy unexpectedly and can't trust his dancing feet.

A softly spoken, polite character - the epitome of a gentleman - he says he can't say how it makes him feel. Then he can contain himself no longer.

"It pisses me off," he says.

"It's felt as though someone has kicked my feet from under me."

Before, he would never miss a dance, inviting single women - mostly widows - to be his partner before supper.

Then, after supper, he would devote his dancing to his wife, Yvonne, till midnight struck and the band packed up.

Now it's different.

While Yvonne sells the tickets, he stands next to her, welcoming people with a shake of the hand (a kiss from the ladies, if he's lucky) and a warm smile.

The dancing goes on without him.

He's also there for security, but this is an alcohol-free event and the days when the young blokes would turn up after a night at the pub are long gone. There's never any trouble these days.

"I am getting the social part but I am just not getting the cream on the cake. I do miss that," he said.

Though the pair did not meet at the dance - they met as children through the church at Shellharbour - there are many who did.

In those days, before the clubs and easy transport, the dances were one of the few ways for a farmer to find a wife.

It's still happening. One couple married in 2011 after meeting at the dance, though fresh romance is now rare.

Peter and Lyn Mitchell are two of more than 100 people whose lives were formed by the dances.

Lyn's great-great-grandfather looked after the sheep at Marshall Mount House for the area's first white settler, Henry Osborne.

She grew up on a nearby farm and remembers when the hall was built, next to her primary school (which closed in the early 1970s).

"We used to get on a sugar bag and slide up and down the hall between dances," she remembered.

"We weren't supposed to, but we used to do it for fun. Everyone who lived around the hall used to come."

The pair met and fell in love at the age of 17 after Peter started driving out from Kiama where his father ran dances in town. That was 1961.

Peter remembers how the local police would often come and check the dances, usually timing their visit for the serving of supper - a range of sandwiches, homemade cake and slice, and as much tea and coffee as you wanted.

But perhaps no-one represents the history of the place better than Claude Harris, whose great-great-grandfather arrived at Marshall Mount on the same day as Lyn's great-great grandfather.

Both came out on the Formosa on May 20, 1839 and worked at Marshall Mount House.

Harris is a comparative latecomer to the dances - he only started coming 45 years ago, when he was 41, but since then has danced almost every one of the 16 dances every fortnight.

He used to dance in the old agricultural hall at Albion Park but, from the age of 17, he drove the family bus to dances up and down the South Coast.

"There used to be a ball at just about every place on the coast on a Friday night," Harris said.

Though aged 86, Harris is extraordinarily youthful for his years, a fact he puts down to never having a single puff of a cigarette nor a single sip of an alcoholic drink.

He believes the clean living is also one reason for the longevity of the old-time dances at Marshall Mount.

"The reason why a lot of people do come here is that there has never been any drinking or drugs," he said.

When the Old Time Dances eventually fade into history, they will take with them a simpler, kinder and more innocent era.

They offer a counterpoint and a challenge to the assumptions of our digital age, which values the fast over the slow, the future over the past, and the global over the local.

Perhaps the author of the booklet produced for the 20th anniversary in 1973 was right when he wrote:

"The pattern of life is apt to change, but it is sincerely hoped that the melodies of the old time dance will not fade away into the night, but linger on through years to come."