Richard Craig (RC)

RC: I’m Richard Craig and I’m a dance host on cruise ships. The dance hosts are there for all of the ladies who are traveling independently. Some of them had danced when they were young, then they got married and perhaps their husband didn’t like to dance and if the husband has died, they come on board and they say, ”Oh my god, I want to dance again.” You know, and they love doing it. We dance about six to eight hours a day. The rumba, the waltz, the foxtrot, the cha-cha and mambo, those are sort of the basics. And I’ve learned to ask people to dance in various and sundry languages. For example, in Japanese is: [ ], and Korean is: [ ], and then of course, [ ], and so on, that’s an easy one, you know. So many people say, ”I can’t dance,” and I don’t believe that in anybody. If you just sway back and forth, you’re dancing. There was a lady on the Queen Elizabeth II, from the Bronx, and she was in a wheelchair. The first time I saw her I walked over and I said, ”How ’bout a little dance?” She said, ”I thought you’d never ask.” So I grabbed her round the back, very tightly, lifted her out of the chair and just held her against me and we just swayed, back and forth, well, she was ecstatic. So, you know, to make someone happy like that, boy, that gets you, that gets you, and it’s wonderful to do. They’re enjoying life, that’s all, that’s why we’re there.