Sal Hodgson often jokingly says she has hundreds of children.

Aside from the three of her own, there are the many Somerset School of Dancing students she had over 45 years.

It’s rare that the 79-year-old forgets one of their names, even though her memory isn’t the greatest these days.

She no longer teaches, but still likes to hang out at the dance school in the old Berkeley building in Pembroke on a Saturday morning.

She was born in Burnley, Lancashire, to Arthur and Lillian Holden. The Second World War started when she was 2; her father went off to serve in the army.

“My name is Ethel,” she said, “but my father always called me Sal. When he came home from the war, Sal was all he would allow me to be called.”

Her mother worked as a housekeeper for a dance teacher.

“One day my mother took me along while she cleaned,” Mrs Hodgson said. “I was supposed to just sit on the sidelines and watch. I was about 8. Instead, I got up and danced with the students.”

The teacher was so impressed she offered her free lessons. Once she started dancing, she quickly rose to the head of the class.

“I was often made the lead dancer,” she said. “Back then I thought it was because I was the shortest child in the class.

“Now, I think it was because I was so confident. I remember being asked at 8 years old what I wanted to do. I said, ‘Dance’. They said, ‘No, what do you really want to do?’ I said, ‘Dance’. There was never any question of anything else for me, although my mother wanted me to be a seamstress.”

It was something she had a talent for; Mrs Hodgson often made costumes for dance recitals at her school.

She studied at the Royal Academy of Dance in London and held a number of jobs in her early adulthood. She danced professionally for a small entertainment company in the seaside town of Eastbourne, East Sussex. She also taught a class of children in Burnley and worked for the telephone company at one point.

In her early twenties, she met her future husband, Michael, at a pub social in Burnley. They had a few dances, but she didn’t think much about it, until they met again at a Christmas party.

“There was this friend of mine who was known for his ways with women,” Mr Hodgson said.

“I saw him talking to Sal over by the hors d’oeuvres. When he put his cigarette out in the cabbage people were meant to eat, I eased in there to rescue her.”

They were engaged just six weeks later and were married in 1963.

Shortly after their first child, Simon, was born in 1965, they began to feel they were caught in a rut.

“Every day was mapped out for us,” she said. “On Monday we ate at my mother’s, on Tuesdays we went to the Miner’s Club with friends, and so on. We loved our families but we needed to break free.”

Mr Hodgson had been working as an accountant in a garage when he spotted a tiny advertisement for an accountant at HWP in Bermuda.

The Hodgsons had only the shakiest idea of where exactly Bermuda was, but they had read a Daily Telegraph article calling Bermuda “a paradise in the Caribbean”, and that was good enough for them.

“We arrived in Bermuda on January 23, 1966,” Mrs Hodgson said. “It was snowing in Britain, so we arrived in our winter coats.”

During their first hours in Bermuda, their landlord put them in front of a roaring fire.

“I remember the sweat rolling down our faces,” she said. “But we loved Bermuda from the moment we saw it. It was like paradise to us.”

Mrs Hodgson thought she was coming to Bermuda to raise a family and lounge about on the beach while her husband worked. But life took a different turn when her Sandys neighbour, Anne Cherry, said she wanted her daughter, Lesley, to take dance classes.

“Anne was a dancer herself,” Mrs Hodgson said. “She didn’t want Lesley to go to any of the dance schools that were open, so she thought she might start one. She knew that I was a qualified dance teacher.”

Mrs Hodgson and Mrs Cherry started teaching classes out of Mrs Hodgson’s living room, and the Somerset School of Dancing was born.

“One of our students was a little girl who was mentally challenged,” Mrs Hodgson said. “Her mother didn’t know what to do with her. She came to me and I taught her for three years. She loved dancing.”

The school moved a number of times until it reached its present location on Berkeley Road. It has 300 students.

In addition to teaching dance, Mrs Hodgson also took part in local theatre and choreographed many productions, including Camelot for the Gilbert & Sullivan Society, four pantomimes, and Cabaret. She is a past member of the National Dance Theatre of Bermuda and also served on the board of The National Dance Foundation of Bermuda.

“In my life, I am most proud of the steps I have made through dance,” Mrs Hodgson said. “I am also most proud of my family.”

She has three children, Simon and Tony Hodgson and Andrea Lopes, and three grandchildren. Zoe, Aiden and Ava.

“I am very proud that my youngest granddaughter, Ava, 4, is now a student at the Somerset School of Dancing,” Mrs Hodgson said. “My granddaughter Zoe, 16, also came through the school and is a very good dancer.”

•Lifestyle profiles a senior citizen in the community every Tuesday. If you know of an outstanding senior citizen we should feature, let Jessie Moniz Hardy know: jmhardy@royalgazette.com or 278 0150. Please include their full name, contact details and the reason you are suggesting them in your message