MBE for Rachel Phillips

Rachel Barnetson Phillips, to use her full name, has long been loved and admired on Arran for her skill and generosity in teaching Scottish dancing. She herself began dancing at nine years old, and is a Life Member of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society.

Rachel took her teaching certificates at St Andrew’s Summer Schools in the 1950s and has taught voluntarily since, initially in Barrow-in-Furness, Manchester and Swansea and then for 40 years at Chester St Andrew Society. In Chester she took all stage classes – beginners; improvers and demonstration teams which took part in Scottish Country Dance Festivals and competitions in Newcastle, Leeds, Liverpool, Stockport, Southport and performed internationally in Auxerre, France and in Colwyn Bay, Wales.

For 30 years, Rachel led the team organising Biennial Day Courses in Chester which attracted dancers from across the Northern Counties, Midlands and North Wales. On retirement to Arran, she took on the Brodick group, originally started by Margaret Hart, and helped Pirnmill and Brodick schools with preparation and performance for the Arran Annual Day of Dance held each November.

Scottish Country Dancing is sociable dancing with seven others in a set providing a variety of dance partners and exercise that is fun and entertaining. There is such enjoyment in dancing, and with so many superb Scottish tunes from the times of Neil Gow and Scott Skinner to those of Muriel Johnstone, Ian McPhail, Ron Kerr and scores of others, that one can no sit still. As has recently been medically proclaimed, it is the activity of mind and coordination of feet, arms and the whole body in remembering and performing the sequence of formations, that is so hugely of benefit and joy in helping to keep fit, and smiling – regardless of age.