RIP Robbie McGowan Hickie

For many a year, I think I taught more of Robbie’s dances than anyone else’s. He had a knack of picking decent, usually mainstream music and coming up with a good dance that had enough to make it interesting without being too taxing to teach or learn.

Robbie was our guest instructor when we organised our first line dance social with a choreographer at Ancaster High School in Lincoln back in June 2002, – he taught his latest dance Rock n Roll Bride. We’ve been going to his own socials since 1999 and had numerous weekends away with him around the country from Hemsby to Harrogate. The photo below was taken many years ago at an event in Glasgow organised by the late Lizzie Clarke. We also attended his classes at both West Bridgford and Beeston – I even ended covering his Beeston class on one occasion.

I can’t begin to count the number of dances of his that I’ve enjoyed, or the number of fun times we’ve had at the various line dance weekends where he’s taught. But if he didn’t like something, such as the latest must-do dance or a certain track of music, he’d let you know in no uncertain terms! He must have got fed up with people pestering him for the latest dance scripts and I tried not to do it too often. He would sometimes help me out on the odd occasion by letting me have a pre-release sheet when I was particularly struggling to find something new to teach that I really liked.

He will be missed by people all over the country and indeed the world, but especially by people in the East Midlands who attended his classes, socials and his own line dance weekends. Our thoughts are with his partner, Tony, and Robbie’s family at this difficult time.