My determination paid off and I received £100 from the Reynolds Memorial Trust for my first term. The hope was that if I could get there and demonstrate my ability – it would result in a grant thereafter from the LEA. The fees were £50 per term! Auntie Helen agreed to have me stay in Southend – a commutable distance. I’m sure that the aunties fed me without any payment and presumably the remaining £50 must have paid for my railway season ticket.
My aunts’ house in Southend where I stayed for my first term at Rambert School of Ballet. I lived downstairs with my Auntie Helen, and my other 2 aunts lived upstairs. Catching an early train from Southend Victoria to Fenchurch Street or Liverpool Street – often falling asleep on route. And waking up with a start a few minutes after the train terminated – to find that my eyelids were glued together because of wearing contact lenses. In those days contact lenses were small hard plastic and sleeping dried out your eyes. I would wake up at the railway station – having realised that the train had come to a jolting stop – and yet again find one or both of my contact lenses had moved around behind my lids. I’d have to wait for my eyes to re-hydrate – and make a trip to the Ladies toilets to get my sight back.
Sandwiched between Auntie Helen on one side and Mum in the blue coat and feather hat.
In the above photo I am wearing a faux fur coat and faux leather boots – hair set with curlers. Before I left to start my professional dance training I worked in Mrs Baldwin’s haberdashery and clothes shop. I was one of the models for a fashion show she held. Mrs Baldwin was from Gran Canaria and married a Brit – opening her enterprising and successful shop in the hamlet where our family lived in Gloucestershire. The Job I had at the shop must have helped me save some money to buy some clothes for London. I quite enjoyed the job, and certainly liked having my own money although it probably wasn’t well paid.
Ballet was an expensive pursuit and even more so when moving on to train seriously. The kit was extensive. Rambert School curriculum included character dance and contemporary taught by Brigitte Kelly. I had to have a special skirt made and black character shoes with a buckle.
I enjoyed meeting and dancing with fellow students at Rambert. Such varied personalities and differing ballet training backgrounds. My special friend was Gillian Lymer who would complete her training and end up living and working in Germany. Some years later I would visit her in Hildesheim and see her and other dancers of the German opera ballet company perform “Wedding Night in Paradise”! The ballet dancers served both the Opera company and performed when required as well as their own repertoire. Gillian was a good dancer with strong technique and excellent pointe work as I recall. She was a great friend and support for me when I and a few others suffered the indignity and upset of being warned that we were on trial.
On a visit home to visit my parents, I went to Cheltenham Pitville Park with my mother. I slipped walking down some stone steps – and bumped along on my spine and coccyx. The bruising and injury prevented me from dancing for a few weeks after that. I was lucky that I was wearing a fur coat borrowed from my mother at the time of the accident. But nevertheless, my progress as a ballet dance student was held back. And in any case, I was not the strongest dancer in my year by some way.
The director of the School at the time, Angela Ellis (daughter of Marie Rambert) was quite unkind and ruthless as it turned out. The school was happy to accept us as students for our fees. Places were highly competitive so it was difficult to get to be a student there. At some point in the school year a small group of our 1st year students including me were taken aside. Mrs Ellis fluttered her eyelashes at us and warned us that if we did not “Pull our socks up” and improve – she had a new set of students coming soon who would take our place and be put directly into the second year. Devastating.
I had to wait until my injury to the coccyx area healed before I had any chance of boosting my technical progress. Perhaps in my heart I suspected that a career in ballet wasn’t for me. That door was closing. But luckily there were other options: Arts Educational school in London and the London School of Contemporary Dance. I passed the audition for Arts Ed even despite singing an appalling rendition of “Greensleeves” (far too high for an untrained young girl who didn’t ever sing at all). I never used to sing confidently or with any volume when in regular school assembly.
The big opportunity was the audition for London School of Contemporary Dance. Brigitte Kelly’s introduction to Martha Graham technique at Rambert School was inspiring to me.
In the last few weeks as a student at Rambert each of us who were going to be asked to leave were given a short appointment to see Mrs Ellis. I told her that I had passed the auditions both for Arts Ed and LSCD. And that I had chosen the latter. Mrs Ellis told me that she thought although it was of course my choice – she thought Arts Ed would be best for me “Because it will enable you to do summer shows”. I remember thinking that this just showed she had no clue as to my desires in the dance world. Somehow I didn’t see myself doing summer variety shows at the end of the pier in Cromer, or Eastbourne, or Brighton. But I really didn’t know how I in any way how I was ever going to end up making some kind of living from dance. Life has a way of enabling or disenabling – doors close, doors open. And fate leads us to meet certain people – as it does.
Had Angela Ellis not made that decision about me, I would never have found contemporary dance and styles that suited me so much better than ballet. So we ought to be grateful for these blows that send us reeling towards a different path.
Angela Ellis was a rather intimidating personality given how young and inexperienced I was as a new student. I think it likely that my year only had one class with her, if that. But I remember watching her working with Sally Owen on the Sugar Plum Fairy solo I think. Mrs Ellis had a habit of fluttering her eyelashes if you found yourself in close proximity to her. Sally Owen was a fine dancer and she went on to be one of the few students at that time who joined the Ballet Rambert (by now it was a contemporary dance company). She also danced later with Second Stride – the company that performed works by Siobhan Davies and Ian Spink.
Recently I read Brigitte Kelly’s fascinating biography of Marie Rambert “Mim”. Kelly was a dancer with Ballet Rambert 1935- 1937. There are some very interesting photos in the book, including one of Brigitte Kelly, just as I remember her looking. She was I think a sympathetic teacher – keen to get the best out of the students. Brigitte taught character dance as s well as contemporary dance. I have a strong memory of how in that first class – all dressed in our below the knee character skirts, black leotards and black character shoes – she instructed us to walk diagonally along the studio floor – one at a time. Mid-way you had to pause and stand in first position and announce your name. Terrifying! We learned various folk dances from her – a tarantella and other dances.
The atmosphere of the old Mercury theatre building was quite unique – just wonderful. All these years later it took reading Kelly’s book and ‘Quicksilver’ Rambert’s autobiography – to remember that there were no showers in the school. No doubt that was one of many reasons why in later years the building would cease to be deemed suitable as a dance school. I count myself lucky to have had at least one year as a student in that historic important dance school.
Fortunately the local education authority by now had given me 2 terms grant – and were to agree also to my switch to London School of Contemporary Dance for the remainder of my training.
Some of the other students from Rambert in the same boat as myself also ended up at LSCD. Where not only was I better suited – but much happier. They were very exciting times – the beginnings of contemporary dance in London. In the late 1960s no less. What a time to be in London.
At some point I was no longer living with my aunties in Southend – but had moved to a hostel in London – near Holland Park. This wasn’t so tiring due to not having to commute. And I had the benefit of a social life with fellow dance students – although little or no money to spend! I had to survive with none of the parental contribution that the LEA considered affordable. I accepted that it wasn’t. And in any case there was no point in minding.
My year at Rambert School of Ballet was a stepping stone – and a good foundation. The ballet classes were tricky but so excellent. In the first few weeks of training we were all seized up and barely able to walk up or down steps. Most of us were only used to taking a few dance classes each week – yet suddenly it was a full daily schedule.
© 2023
Whilst still a student at the Rambert School – in the depth of winter I queued for hours outside the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. I just had to see Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in “Romeo & Juliet”. I queued for standing room only tickets.
In the queue next to me I met a young Scottish guy – Gordon Thompson. He told me that he was a regular audience member and saw as much opera and ballet as he could. We chatted, and it transpired that he would have liked to dance, but had no training. Despite this, I encouraged him to consider auditioning for Rambert School. I told him that they were desperate for boys!
I told Gordon that I could teach him some of the basics. We arranged to meet up probably in one of my fellow student’s bedsit. I demonstrated the 5 positions of the feet, the arms, plies, tendus, degage. Perhaps rond de jambes and port de bras.
Amazingly, he passed the audition. By which time I was probably off to London School of Contemporary Dance. Gordon was a very nice friendly person. He became a big name in the world of Pilates after his dance training at Rambert. I was very pleased to see how successful he became and what a good career path he carved. I can’t take any credit for that, but think it likely that were it not for our chance meeting in the snow outside the ROH – he almost certainly would not have gone to the Rambert School, and might not have discovered Pilates.
This is how life works – so many opportunities arise out of completely chance encounters.