But when it comes to an item of dancewear, nothing is given greater care or attention, mending a favourite pair of tights or lovingly ironing each delicate frill of a tutu. This all enveloping passion for ballet is reflected in how many of the characters dress, off stage they are happy to wear any old thing, not caring in the least how they look in their everyday clothes. It is no wonder that the successful few, like Annette Dancy, dedicate their entire life to dancing only in class or on stage do they truly come alive.

To reach the top requires the almost impossible combination of physical perfection, a strong constitution, an expressive face, intelligence and sensitivity, a vivid imagination and innate musicality – all of which will count for nothing without the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time. Lorna Hill unflinchingly portrays the stark reality behind the glamour, the hours spent in practise and rehearsal taking harsh criticism from temperamental ballet masters, the sacrifice of a social life when spare time is spent washing tights and darning shoes. In short, all human life is here the ballet class is a vibrant microcosm.Īnyone who has stood at the barre practising endless plié, relevé and tendu will know just how much hard work it takes to become a professional dancer, the breathless exhaustion behind the effortless facade. The dancing schools we visit are populated by those who see dancing as the only way to escape poverty and a life selling cauliflowers at the co-op, the precocious brats who delight their mothers with displays of tap and ballroom, the tough cookies who lack artistic integrity but have the ambition and technique to succeed, and the truly talented who may spend their career in the corps without that lucky break. What we find are real people in the real world, and so it is with ballet, which despite being shown as undeniably romantic, is never romanticized. When we enter the world of Lorna Hill we do not find ourselves in a fairytale land where cherubic infants spend idyllic lives in perpetual sunshine.

In this first of four articles I will look at how ballet is depicted in these two series, how it is one of four main strands running through the twenty titles, all of which contrast and entwine to form a complex and literary body of work.

Those who refuse to judge a book by its cover will soon realize that the decorative dust jackets showing dancers in classical poses disguise a text in which ballet forms only the surface layer, a background on which to overlay the larger themes of life, love and art. To the casual observer, the fourteen Sadler’s Wells and six Dancing Peel stories written by Lorna Hill may be imagined to be only of interest to balletomanes.

Only You by Lorna Peel