Script lettering in a circular rose and peony wreath

You will not believe what Mrs Haddon did with the wreath from the Saturday dance. She had the florist on Kentish Road bind every rose and peony left over from the Coronation display into a ring big enough to hang above the bandstand, then painted the hall's name across the middle in black, so thick you could read it from the far end of the floor. Everyone said it was vulgar. Mr Pryce said it was the only honest thing in the building.

I danced with the sailor from the Ramsgate boat twice that night, once to a quickstep that nearly broke my ankle, and once to a slow number when the trumpet player gave up and the hall went quiet enough to hear the sea through the open doors. He smelled of coal smoke and Brylcreem. He asked me nothing about myself, which I liked, and told me all about the flowers on his mother's hat, which I did not.

Here is the strange part. When I went to fetch my coat, the wreath had been taken down and laid on the cloakroom bench, and the sailor was sitting beside it, turning one dahlia over in his fingers as though he were counting its petals. He said the ring was for whoever could make the band play backwards. I told him I was no such girl. He said that was the trouble with rings.

I am enclosing the ticket stub. Keep it safe. I may go back on Saturday, if only to see whether the paint has run.

Love, Dot