First steps

This is the first blog of our grand tour to Russia. What started out as a vague possibility, hatched out over lunch just before Christmas last year, is fast becoming a reality. On 16 September we shall be taking off from Heathrow and flying to Russia. Hotels are booked, plans laid to watch classes at the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky, and tickets purchased for our train trip in the Red Arrow from Moscow to St. Petersburg.

None of us has been to Russia before but it is a journey we have all independently wanted to make.  Growing up in the cold war as we did, the USSR evoked both fear and wonder in us; more specifically, we were in awe of the great Russian dancers of that era - Maximova, Bessmertnova, Vasiliev and later Makarova and Baryshnikov. We could hardly believe our good luck when Nureyev defected and joined the Royal Ballet Company. With one giant leap we became witnesses to and participators in the revolution Rudolf inspired in British ballet.

You may, of course, wonder why four ex-Royal Ballet dancers would have waited this long to go on our pilgrimage. Surely we should be pruning the roses and booking our hip operations. Well, I have news for you: we are in our prime; it's never too late to follow your passion.

So who are we?

I'm not going to divulge the year this was taken so as not to upset those of you with a nervous disposition but I will tell you that the setting is the lily pond at White Lodge, the junior section of the Royal Ballet School, and all of us gathered there represent Form V. That summer was to be our last at White Lodge; we went on to the Upper School at Baron's Court the following September. We are missing one of our four from this photo because at that time Gail was in New Zealand, preparing for the long journey to England and the Upper School.

Third from left is Trish; on her right is Penny and behind Penny is Sue. Our Miss Jean Brodie AKA Miss Zambra, the art mistress, was behind the lens.