Walter William Laird (26 July 1920 – 30 May 2002) was a major influence in the development of Latin American dancing in Britain after the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. He was World Professional Latin Dance Champion three times. He coached many successful dancers including Allan Tornsberg, Vibeke Toft,

Espen Salberg Espen Salberg (born 28 March 1952 in Oslo, Norway) is a Norwegian ballroom dancer. See also * Dance in Norway *List of dancers An annotated list of popular/famous dancers. A * Ayo & Teo, duo of dancers and musicians from Ann Arbor, Michi ...

Jukka Haapalainen Jukka Haapalainen is a Finnish professional ballroom dancer.Jukka ...

Sirpa Suutari Sirpa Suutari (Sirpa Suutari-Jääskö

Donnie Burns Donnie Burns MBE was born in Hamilton, South Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1959, where he attended Holy Cross High School. He is a Scottish professional ballroom dancer, specialising in Latin dance. He and his former partner Gaynor Fairweather were ...

Ian Waite Ian Waite (born 29 January 1971) is a British professional dancer specialising in Latin American dance, a teacher and choreographer. Biography Waite was born in Reading, Berkshire. He started dancing at the age of 10. Mary Richardson, a former ...

Peter Maxwell Peter Maxwell (23 January 1921 – 5 April 2013) born as Peter Magitai, was a British, and later Australian film director, director and screenwriter of television and film. Biography He was born in Vienna, Austria, to newspaper journalist ...

& Lynn Harman were amongst his first major champions and a couple on which much of his ultimate technique was developed. Laird was a Fellow and Examiner of the

IDTA The International Dance Teachers Association (IDTA) is a dance teaching and examination board based in Brighton, England. Operating internationally, the IDTA currently has over 7,000 members in 55 countries. The IDTA is recognised by the nationa ...

, and until 2000, he was Secretary (and later President) of the Ballroom Dancers' Federation. Laird first danced with his sister Joan in the 1930s. His professional partner during the war and after was Andé Lyons (née Ashcroft, and subsequently Andé Tyrer). They met when Andé was sent to the

Royal Aircraft Establishment The Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) was a British research establishment, known by several different names during its history, that eventually came under the aegis of the Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom), UK Ministry of Defence (MoD), bef ...

Farnborough Farnborough may refer to: Australia * Farnborough, Queensland, a locality in the Shire of Livingstone United Kingdom * Farnborough, Hampshire, a town in the Rushmoor district of Hampshire, England ** Farnborough (Main) railway station, a railw ...

as a

shorthand typist Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed and brevity of writing as compared to longhand, a more common method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek ''ste ...

. One day she took dictation from Walter Laird, who was a scientist working there. At the end of the dictation, he asked her if she was keen on dancing. :"By this time, the Americans were in force in the area. Like most of the girls, I now knew how to Jitter Bug (later called the Jive), and I was having a great time! My answer to him was that I loved dancing and that I was pretty good at it too! We made a date and to my horror it turned out Walter was a professional ballroom dancer. I soon realised that I was well out of my depth. However, Walter offered to teach me to dance properly as he thought that I had potential. So that was how my second career was born!" The Laird–Lyons partnership was entirely traditional ballroom dancing. Laird did not switch to Latin until some time after the war. Laird's three world championships (1962–1964) were in partnership with Lorraine Reynolds (now Rohdin), known professionally as 'Lorraine'. Later Walter married Julie, who continues the dance school in South London. One of Laird's greatest achievements was his ''Technique of Latin dancing'', first published in 1961; further editions in 1964, 1972, 1977, 1983, 1988, 2003. Initially Laird followed the traditional descriptive format, but in 1972 edition he published the results of a major analysis of Latin dance, and used a tabular form, including a column for 'action used' to help definition. This edition was widely influential, and has since been accepted by many dance teacher organisations as a definitive work.Wainwright, Lyndon

997 Year 997 (Roman numerals, CMXCVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Japan * 1 February: Empress Teishi gives birth to Princess Shushi - she is the first ...

''The story of British popular dance''. International Dance Publications, Brighton.

Works

*''Technique of Latin dancing''.

standard text. **''Technique of Latin dancing supplement:'' technique for the

British Dance Council The British Dance Council was formed in 1929 as the Official Board of Ballroom Dancing (OBBD). The name was changed in 1985 to the British Council of Ballroom Dancing and in 1996, the name was changed to British Dance Council. The BDC is the reco ...

's Appendix 1. (Latin) Figures. *''Ballroom Dance pack''. 1994, 2004. Includes CD; French, German, Spanish editions exist.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laird, Walter 1920 births 2002 deaths British ballroom dancers English male dancers Dance teachers