Bernhard Wosien brought sacred dance from Munich in around 1978. Bernhard had collected folk dances from around Europe and was looking for somewhere to bring that knowledge. He met Peter and Eileen at a conference and they offered that it could come to Findhorn.

I quickly got invited to join the dance group in the first autumn we were in Findhorn. The Earth Sings festival was coming up, with Bernhard leading and teaching dances, for a performance he had choreographed. I had been spotted and identified by Anna Barton as someone who could dance – my mother was an English country dance teacher, so I had done much as a child.

Being invited to join that group was in a way how I landed here and I just enjoyed doing the dancing. I was with the regular Tuesday group for about five years. I then felt its time was over for me and I joined the Culbin Singers, a choir in Forres who I sung with for 20 years.

When I was leaving the community after 27 years, I held an evening in the hall to show and talk about things I had been involved in. Because dance had been so important to me upon my arrival in the community and had helped me land here, I wanted to include some dance and I also wanted to show that yes, men can dance too, as most dancers were usually women at that time. I demonstrated by leading a group of men in a traditional men’s line dance.

Interviewed by Liz Wigglesworth