Peggy Thomson turned a passion for dance into a lifelong career teaching seniors. Over the decades, she’s taught hundreds of them around the Lower Mainland. The Record spoke with Thomson as she winds down her career, preparing for her own retirement.
In the early years
Peggy Thomson was teaching a dance class at Bonsor Seniors Centre in Burnaby, when someone called out from the crowd: “I think I used to change your diapers!”
It was one of Thomson’s childhood neighbours, and the woman had, in fact, babysat the instructor when she was known as “Little Peggy Stock.”
It was a moment that underscored Thomson’s inter-generational relationship to her students. Thomson estimates she’s taught thousands of seniors how to dance.
“I always say they raised me,” she says. “They helped me grow up.”
Where it all began
Thomson started teaching line dancing and ballroom for seniors at New Westminster’s Century House and Centennial Community Centre in the late 1970s. Word spread of her classes, and soon she was in demand.
“Then the phone just started really ringing,” she says.
At the time, Bonsor was still being built, and Thomson’s job interview took place in a construction trailer. Next thing she knew, she was teaching at Cameron, Edmonds and Confederation centres in Burnaby. She also spread out to Coquitlam and Maple Ridge.
At first, the lessons were country and western style, but then came cha cha and rumba. Now she teaches multiple styles, but all line dancing, meaning the students are facing the instructor, not each other.
The inter-generational connection
Teaching seniors was the perfect job for Thomson, who always felt comfortable with older folks, after having grown up around an elderly great aunt.
“As I grew up, I had a lot of older people around me, and I just loved them. And I saw this thing called line dancing, and I knew seniors would love it, and it would be an opportunity to work during the day. It’s the perfect pastime for seniors,” Thomson says.
And the seniors loved Thomson, too. Her classes were wildly popular, with registration lineups and anxiety about being wait-listed.
“I think everybody wants to be loved, and they want to have fun, and you get that from my class. That’s what people tell me,” she says. “It’s the truth.”
Dance benefits for seniors
According to Thomson, dancing is a form of physical fitness that can benefit seniors by lowering blood pressure and helping with balance. It’s also a great chance to socialize with a group of people who all love doing the same thing, she explains. Thomson also organized dance parties, where seniors from other centres would all converge.
“I would make sure every centre I went to would learn the same things, so when we came together, it was a big mass of people on the floor, doing the same sequence,” she says.
After decades of teaching and countless students, Thomson, now 65, is whittling down her instruction time. Her last day at Bonsor was June 24, and it’s already tugging on her heart strings.
“I just loved Bonsor so much because there was such a crowd there,” she says. “I’m going to miss them so bad, it’s eating me.”
Thomson is still teaching in other municipalities but only south of the Fraser River. Click here for more information on her classes.
