There are those senior citizens who relish a slower pace of life.

Leon “Sparky” Place isn’t one of them.

For more than 60 years he’s helped to keep Bermuda’s gombey tradition alive. As a young child he got hooked by the colours, the music and the crowds.

“It feels great to be keeping this tradition alive,” the 76-year-old said. “There is just this great feeling you get from dancing. Right before I put on my costume I always put on some calypso music. I will be there, dancing around, checking out new steps I could do.”

He last performed in the Bermuda Day Parade in May, to celebrate the 65th anniversary of his troupe.

He loves how the gombeys attract so many different parts of the community.

“The gombeys bring out everyone,” he said.

“The other day I went to see them coming down Town Hill in Flatts. Before they even came down the hill, people were lined up along the road, waiting for them.”

Place’s Gombey troupe was started by his father, Reginald.

Mr Place’s mother, Mabel, made the first costumes. As gombeys grew, or left the group, their costumes would be handed down.

Mr Place joined in 1957 at the age of 10 and is now the oldest surviving member.

“It wasn’t hard picking it up,” he said of the dancing. “It was within me.”

Today, gombeys dance regularly for visitors and at special events but in the late 1950s they danced mainly at Easter, Boxing Day, New Year’s Day and other public holidays.

“We would be out on the road and dancing by 7am,” Mr Place said. “We wouldn’t sleep at all the night before because we would be too busy getting ready and straightening everything out.”

They always started from the home of relatives or neighbours, usually on the North Shore in Devonshire.

“The best thing was to start off with a good crowd with you,” he said. “That is what really makes you dance.”

Mr Place’s father followed a gombey dancing style called “masquerade”, which they felt was traditional.

“That is the old way,” Mr Place said. “It is a slow dance. It is not how guys dance today.”

As captain, his father carried a whip.

“Once, a guy called Henry Knights was dancing with my father,” Mr Place said. “He was doing the same steps over and over. My father sang out ‘masquerade’ as a warning. The guy kept doing what he was doing, so my daddy took that whip and swung it. Man, it went around my brother’s neck and came right across my mask. You know I felt that.”

That scenario likely wouldn’t happen today, he said.

“If they did, they would be in trouble with other people not in the group,” he said. “Spectators would go and call their mates and that sort of thing.”

He said there was a lot more respect between groups back then but there was still plenty of competition.

“Whenever I saw the captain of our rival group, he would always try to do something to upset me,” Mr Place said. “Once, we were around on Dundonald Street in Hamilton. It was a holiday, and we were performing and he came and did a flip in the middle of my group. So I sent one of our little guys up to his group to challenge them and show them what we were about, but the captain did not want to dance.”

Mr Place said the behaviour of both the crowds and the dancers has changed for the worse. He is alarmed by the way many young gombey followers talk of “war” between groups.

“Even the crowds feel different,” he said. “Years ago, you had to walk behind the troupe or way ahead. You did not get in the way, because they had to dance.”

Over the years, he has travelled with the gombeys to Colombia, Jamaica and a couple of US states,

Even in Colombia, as soon as the drums started beating, Bermudians would come out of the crowd.

His costume has been around for more than three decades. He designed and stitched it himself with the help of a friend.

“It took me more than three months to make,” Mr Place said. “Being a gombey takes a lot of creativity. There is a lot that goes into it.”

He grew up in Pembroke, on St Monica’s Road. He recalls it as a “strong community”.

“It was pretty good growing up there,” Mr Place said.

He started in the masonry trade at the age of 13.

“I had to leave school at that age,” he said. “That was all I knew. I was the third of ten children. I knew I had to go to work and that I had responsibility for my younger brothers.”

In his spare time, he and his friends loved carving small wooden boats.

“We would put a sail on them, tie a long string and race them on the water,” he said. “There was a guy called Sparky Gates who had a boat called Chase Me to the Bottom. That is exactly what would happen to mine. I would have to chase it to the bottom of the ocean. So my friends started calling me Sparky after Sparky Gates.”

Mr Place has seven children: Antoine, Andre and Antoinette Place; Denton, Dwayne and Delmare Trott and Tucoma Robinson. He also has 15 grandchildren.

Dwayne, Denton, Delmare, Tucoma, Andre and Mr Place’s 11-year-old grandson, De-Ari Trott, all dance with Place’s.

“De-Ari has a lot of power when he dances,” he said. “He reminds me of myself. The young people are what keep things going.”

• Lifestyle profiles the island’s senior citizens each week. Contact Jessie Moniz Hardy on 278-0150 or jmhardy@royalgazette.com with the full name and contact details and the reason you are suggesting them