Bert Herdman and Lyttelton’s Dance Nights

By Steve McKelvey

People may remember rails set in the footpath opposite today’s Lyttelton Health Centre on Oxford Street. They were used for transporting bread between the bakehouse behind the Excelsior Tearooms and the street. The rails led down an alleyway and if you turned left and ascended the external stairs you would arrive at the Excelsior Lounge, a second storey dance and function hall, very popular from the 1920s to the 1950s.

Trinity Hockey Club regularly hosted Saturday night dances in the Excelsior, starting at 7.30 pm, pausing around 10.30 pm for a supper of sandwiches, cakes, and a cup of tea, then continuing until midnight. Trinity Hockey Club founding member Bert Herdman’s band ‘The Herdman Fisk Orchestra’ were a popular act at the Excelsior Lounge in the early 1930s – Stan Dwight on tuba, Reg Fisk as drummer, Horace Barsley playing trumpet, Ron Brundle and Dave McFadden playing saxophone and clarinet, and Bert himself on piano. The Orchestra had formed around 1929, playing evenings and weekends at local dances and functions in Lyttelton, Christchurch, Timaru, and Greymouth.

Herbert (Bert) Herdman, born 1901, learned piano as a boy while living in Ripon Street. He sat Trinity College of Music exams, played at local City of Norwich Lodge functions, and also for the Holy Trinity Young Men’s Bible Class run by Dr Charles Upham. He later became sought after for sports club dances, sometimes accompanied by his wife Una as vocalist. In 1924 he became a concert pianist for Christchurch radio station 3YA. Bert did not follow a professional career in music, he worked as a shipping agent and later manager for Holm and Co Ltd, while moonlighting at the Excelsior Lounge.

For those in Lyttelton wishing to improve their dancing, there was no shortage of lessons available for young children to adults. Una Herdman's niece Laurel Sinclair remembers Lylla Wilman holding lessons in her parents’ house on the corner of Exeter and St Davids streets from the late 1930s to the early 1940s. Laurel also remembers a dance for returning soldiers in uniform at the RSA Hall beside the present road tunnel entrance in 1946. As a teenager she played piano accompanying local vocalist Aileen Gilmour at that event.

Miss Ziska Zander’s classes were in the wide hallway of the old stone Bank of New Zealand building. Her father was the manager of the motor garage next door, which still stands on the corner of Norwich Quay and Dublin Street. If creative dance was something that interested you there was Miss Swaby’s Dance Studio, accessed by stairs leading down from behind the counter in her family's paint and wallpaper shop on London Street. Once a year Miss Swaby’s spectacular dance show extravaganza with exotic costumes and innovative props and lighting was held on stage in the Harbour Light Theatre.

From the 1920s to the 1950s there were dances on every night of the week in Christchurch. In the 1940s the Christchurch Star newspaper ran a regular column ‘Around the dances’ that advertised the events of the coming week. Each had a different theme – ‘Back to Childhood’, ‘Shipwreck’, ‘Monte Carlo’, often with competitions, streamers, balloons, lucky spots, and sparklers. There was also a regular Wednesday night dance in the RSA Hall in Lyttelton in the late 1940s, with the ‘Terry Minson Orchestra’ often playing.

For a change of venue on Saturdays, Lyttelton boys would ride their bicycles over Evans Pass to the Sumner RSA, where the ‘Arthur Bierman Band’ was playing. Dances at that time were alcohol-free, although bottles of beer were hidden in the coal heap of the adjoining Sumner gasworks. At midnight the long push back up the Sumner hill to Lyttelton took place.

The Trinity Hockey Club along with the Trinity Tennis Club, which had two courts on the site of the present-day Lyttelton Recreation Centre, were initially formed by members of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church. Although hockey was played in Lyttelton from the late 1890s, the Trinity Hockey Club wasn’t formed until 1923 – at its peak it boasted at least 10 teams from under 15 years to seniors, mostly competing in Christchurch. Social events including the Saturday dances in the Excelsior with bands like ‘The Herdman Fisk Orchestra’ were a large part of the club activities, but with the growing popularity of rugby in the port in the early 1950s, the club closed and remaining players joined Christchurch teams. One of the last bands to play at the Trinity Hockey Club Excelsior dances were the ‘Rhythmic Trio’ which included local drummer Terry Oakley.

The owner of the Norton’s Buildings which housed the Excelsior Lounge dance hall was James Talbot Norton (of Norton’s Premier Egg Preservative fame). He is also remembered as the 1915 president of the Bowling Club on a plaque in Oxford Street, opposite the site of the Excelsior. The Norton’s building was demolished following significant damage in the Canterbury Earthquake sequence.