Born in 1921 Rowena Fayre combined a career in ballet with a very different sort of life. After boarding school in Hertfordshire, and daily lessons at Sadler’s Wells SchoolSadler’s Wells School with Ninette de Valois, she joined the Vic-Wells Ballet Company. In this interview she talks to Patricia Linton about how she had to accommodate her dancing with the life of a debutante: being presented at court and taking part in the London Social Season. In this conversation with Patricia Linton she remembers performing in the 1938 Old Vic production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Vivien Leigh as Titania and dancing in Ninette de Valois's ballet, Checkmate.

Rowena Fayre was born in 1921. While attending Highfield School in Hertfordshire, she won a scholarship to Sadler’s Wells School. While there she won the student of the year prize in 1939, and studied in Paris with Olga Preobrajenska (whom she found ferocious) and also with Marie Rambert. She danced various roles with Vic- Wells Ballet, notably in Checkmate in 1937, in an Old Vic production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1938 and in the Sleeping Princess in 1939. She also worked briefly with Mona Inglesby at Eton College (to mark the uncovering of some old frescoes in the chapel). With the advent of war, she joined the WRENS, and left dancing altogether.

The episode is introduced by Patricia Linton.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.