Due to my size and being so small when I was born the doctor seemed to think I needed strengthening up in the legs so I was enrolled in ballet lessons.
I can remember clearly going to these ballet lessons for many years from the age of about 4 or 5 until I was about 14 when I discovered other things I wanted to do.
These ballet lessons were held at the teacher's house, situated just off the Cross Hayes car park. It was a very old rambling house, more of what you would now call a cottage, and when you entered the front door the training rooms were upstairs.
This room had a large mirror along one wall with a long bar going the full length. You used this bar to practice your basic steps with. As I progressed I was allowed to wear ballet shoes that are known as points, these ballet shoes have a wooden block in the tow section that allow you to stand up on your toes.
Every year we were asked to put on a show at the Town Hall theatre which had a stage, and the curtains for this theatre were made from very heavy maroon velvet and could be drawn back to reveal the stage. I was very proud to know that my Aunty Mary had made these curtains.
We did many shows in this theatre of which I can remember a few snippets.
One of my few memories is that one of the pieces we did at a show was a skating scene where we all attempted to be skaters and danced to the music called "Skater's Waltz".
Another piece must have been something to do with gardens, I think it was called 'In an English Garden', because I was dressed up as one of the bees and danced around others dressed as flowers, I cannot recall now what music was used for that dance.
On another occasion I can remember when all the girls of about my age were stood in a row on the stage with our dolls, I seem to think it must have been something to do with Brahms Lullaby because we were all pretending to rock our dolls/babies to sleep. I remember this well because not only do I have a photograph of this but also one of the girls was the daughter of the Mayor of Malmesbury at the time and, of course, she had to have a much larger doll than anybody else just for show.
