Dancing pensioners + catholic 'cover up'

Member of the AWO Ballet in costume.

Dear Reader,

• In my line of work you often meet people who either really want to talk to you or have no interest in talking at all. Both can be irksome, the former because they have an agenda, the latter because a conversation is like pulling nails. Yesterday, however I got to speak to someone who had no problem speaking her mind but was obviously completely mystified by the sudden attention she was receiving. Erika Schmaltz is the head of an all-female pensioners dance troupe who had just been given a crash course in the madness of the 21st century. She told me that she’d learned the word ‘woke’ for the first time the day before. A friend had explained what it means to her after she unwittingly found herself at the centre of a national media storm. Ms Schmaltz, from Mannheim in Baden-Württemberg, had been invited by the national garden show to perform with her dance troupe at the biennial event. The dancers, who sew their own costumes, planned to pe…