Like many little girls, I had dreams of becoming a ballerina and so from a very early age, I pestered my parents for ballet lessons.
By the time I was six years old, they apparently felt it was an appropriate thing for me to do and gave in to my demands. I was sent to Miss Taylor, who had once been a member (probably a very minor one, given this was an English provincial town in the 1970s!) of the Royal Ballet corps. We all called her ‘madame’, of course.