This is a series of installments that Stella wrote starting May 2013, since we moved to a new Web Host and new Blog. Larry B felt it appropriate to re-post the series on our new Blog site. Perhaps We will get Stella to continue her story and maybe some other future articles from “The Line Dance Guru”
Part 1
The story of the Line Dance Guru as you know her today but what she has never told about her life before she came to the U.S.A. and after she first arrived as a British tourist on holiday for a week.
I was born on a freezing cold night in Ashton-U-Lynne Lancashire in the North of England February 2nd 1953.I was the 3rd child born to parents Stella Ball and Charles Ball. Mum was a London Royal College of music teacher and Dad, a former Grenadier guard and personal Queens’s regiment to Queen Elizabeth when she was just a teenager. I was the first girl and soon to be followed by a third brother, so there were 4 of us for many years till my sisters came a long 8 years later 18 months between them, now there were 6 children, 3 boys, 3 girls.
To say our child hood was dysfunctional would be an understatement even by today’s standards, where it seems more and more children are raised in homes of abuse or just plain neglect. The difference was back then it was all kept quiet and swept under the rug. The neighbors ignored the screaming domestic abuse between my father and mother unless occasionally it became so disruptive they would make an anonymous call to police. Not many homes had phones in those day’s but we were fortunate the next door neighbor had a phone, and when the police arrived they would calm the situation and just leave, often with me clinging to the officers leg begging to be taken away with them. The law was such at that time that unless one or the other spouse was willing to file charges they could not arrest anyone.
My Mum had a great sense of humor, was utterly charming and men found her irresistible. My father super intelligent, who spoke many languages and possessed a vast knowledge through books but was a full-blown alcoholic and was addicted to codeine which you could buy over the counter. He was prone to violence when in on codeine and alcohol to my mother and older brother Charles in particular.