IT'S tutus at the ready as dancing queen Pauline Gee's young proteges return for classes at her burgeoning studio soon.

The 50-year-old cruise liner dancer turned dance school entrepreneur restarts her teaching on April 17.

Her Pauline 'G' School of Dance reopens classes at Holy Trinity Parish Hall in Waterhead.

"The children have really missed it," said mother-of-two and soon to be grandmother Pauline. "And I've really missed them.

"The lockdowns have affected my school really badly. We reopened in September for six weeks, but apart from that we've closed for a whole year. It's been so frustrating."

Luckily, during the days Pauline works full-time as a teaching assistant at Clarksfield Primary School.

"I've been teaching children to read on Zoom full-time, which is great," continued Pauline. "But dance is very difficult to teach online, so I just had to stop until we could get back to proper classes."

Pauline has been dancing since the age of seven, starting at the renowned Marianne Jepson School of Dance in Nubcote Street, Oldham.

"I danced there right through to my teens, but when I turned 16, me dad told me I had to get a proper job.

"So I went to work in Manchester in an office."

However, when she was 18 she was lucky enough to get a private grant to go full-time to Marianne Jepson's and undertake a three-year dance teacher training course.

"I then danced on cruise liners in Japan for six months, the Canary Islands and all over the place for five years," said Pauline.

"Later I got first refusal on Sue McKinley's School which was based at St John the Baptist Church Hall, in Stamford Road in Springhead. It had been running for 13 years by that time.

"It became the Pauline 'G' School of Dance.

"I then bought a second school - the Helen Wild School of Dance, based in Lees and merged them into one."

The children can't wait to get back, but I'm also trying to generate new interest.

Pauline added: "I'm now teaching the next generation of dancers. I taught girls that are now parents and their children come to my dance school too."