However, mishaps can happen in competitions. At one competition, our group was performing a contemporary move called contraction – a curling of the spine and pelvis to make a shape like a barbecued prawn. We wore funky hot-pink tops with flared pants and bare midriffs. Our hair was supposed to be in a sleek, long ponytail, so I had to get a fake one to clip onto my head. As I flipped my head forward towards my toes, I was mortified to see my fake ponytail suddenly on the floor! I had to quickly pick it up and keep dancing, otherwise someone might trip on it. Miss Hansen praised me afterwards for my quick-witted reaction. It was a good lesson that no matter what happens during the show, you must continue at all costs!
There were always a lot of mothers fussing in the dressing room during these competitions, but my mother would just stay quiet in the background. The only input she gave during the whole competition was ‘That’s lovely, darling’ when it was finished. I believed that was the correct response for a mother.
The following year I had my first tutu made. Mum bought the material in Sydney on an earlier trip with Dad. The tulle was pink and the bodice was in pink and gold. Mum also bought me a tiara from Brisbane. Unlike my hair, I never worried about my costumes as Mum had great taste. I knew this tutu would be stunning without being too over the top.
All of my family came to watch me at Rocky’s Municipal Theatre for my next competition. This time, I was competing in my first classical solo competition and was very excited to be wearing my beautiful tutu. Mum had a bucket ready beside her in case she was overwhelmed with nerves. Even Dad came. Mum always kept him in the dark about this kind of thing in case he got too excited.
Once everyone had danced, we waited at the side of the stage for the winners’ numbers to be called. I loved that solo, but it wasn’t as difficult as some others. The third-place girl was really good, so I didn’t believe I had placed. Thinking I wasn’t going to get anything, I was a little disappointed and started walking back to my dressing room when I heard someone call ‘Number eight!’.
My head snapped up. ‘That’s me! That’s me!’ I said to the other disappointed girls who were also walking backstage. I rushed back quickly in my tutu and then stopped at the wing. Remembering grace and posture, I glided onto the stage to receive a crystal bell for first prize. Even though I had only been en pointe for a short time, the judge said I had an unusual quality. She had decided to give the prize not to the most difficult solo but to mine. I was beside myself with happiness and couldn’t stop smiling!
The crystal bell was small and delicate. It meant everything to me. Dom liked it, too. Sometime later at home, no one could find it. It was a mystery for weeks, and I cried, devastated. I was suspicious and sweetly convinced Dom that if he confessed to taking the bell and returned it, there would be no punishment. He eventually admitted he had accidentally broken it and hidden it in his chest of drawers. I promptly told Mum. Dom was mortified at the betrayal and hid under his bed, but Mum was furious and found him. He rolled from side to side to avoid the wooden spoon while Mum got on the bed and went from side to side determined to punish him! Dom threatened to run away and disappeared for a few hours, but we found him later hiding in a bedroom wardrobe. Nothing was ever safe in that household!
My life at fourteen revolved entirely around ballet. I got to see the Australian Ballet perform Giselle with Grandma Bridie in Brisbane. It tells the love story of a noble count and a village girl, with music by Adolphe Adam. As it was my first ballet, I was transfixed and will never forget the experience. The performance ignited my great passion for theatre. On another one of my visits to my grandparents, I saw the great Dame Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev in Swan Lake at Her Majesty’s Theatre. That was incredibly special and I will always remember how the audience stood up to roar at the end. Grandma Bridie and I were so excited that we waited at the stage door hoping unsuccessfully to get a glimpse of the stars. Never in my wildest imagination would I have believed that these two superstars would come into my life in the years ahead.
It was also around this time when Miss Hansen called Mum to see if I could help her after school by teaching the little ones. In return, my fees would be taken care of. I liked the idea. I was quite at ease with children, having five younger siblings. I am not sure if Miss Hansen wanted me to teach because she thought I would one day be a good teacher, or if she was concerned that as a teenager I might lose interest in ballet as so many of my classmates had started to drop out of it. She not only taught me how to dance, but also how to teach. She obviously believed in me, and that gave me enormous confidence. I enjoyed teaching and felt I was good at it. The little girls looked up to me and I loved seeing them improve each week.
By the time I was in Year 11, I was doing school part-time. Ballet training went for four-and-a-half hours in the morning – 6.30 to 11 a.m., I’d go to school after that, and then back to ballet for another few hours. Miss Hansen was one of those teachers who thought nothing of keeping us for another hour and a half at night class. As a result, the other girls always wanted to be driven home by my father because he didn’t get cranky. Other parents would be impatiently pacing up and down on the landing, but Neil George would simply wait in the car and, when we emerged, greet us with the usual, ‘Hello, beautiful girls! Do you want a Coke?’ And he’d stop at the corner store and get each of us a Coke. What a treat!
During one summer holiday Dad picked me up but we couldn’t join the family at the beach as we had planned to because there was a cyclone looming. All we could do was drive home and shut all the windows and stay there. I wasn’t too worried because we were used to cyclones, but this time the wind was more ferocious than before. The iron roof was banging and threatening to blow off, the palm trees outside were bending so low to the ground in the sheeting rain, and the trampoline was upturned against the back fence. It was the year Cyclone Tracy demolished Darwin at Christmas time.
After that, I stopped going on family holidays over summer. Miss Hansen insisted that we go to the Scully-Borovansky summer school in Sydney. ‘Girls, the school break is too long for dancers,’ she told us. ‘You’ve got to keep your bodies in good shape. I also don’t want you out in the sun. No freckles or burnt skin, please.’ The ‘English rose’ is what Miss Hansen was aiming for. Her own skin was like milk powder and the colour of peaches and cream. So we all tried to have that type of skin in the stinking heat in Rocky.
The three weeks in Sydney quickly became a great time of my life. Three extra weeks of nothing but ballet! I couldn’t believe my luck. I couldn’t wait to get to Scully’s to dance. Each year I went there, I stayed at a hostel under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and had to wash my tights in the shower. I kind of missed my family but I loved the program – I just couldn’t miss ballet for the world. Miss Hansen joined us and would sit watching us for the whole three weeks, taking notes about corrections and music.
My last year with Miss Hansen was 1975, when Sharon and I were both sixteen. Sharon returned from Melbourne to continue her training. Nina had left to accept a position with the Australian Ballet School in Melbourne and all my other classmates had dropped out long ago. Ballet was getting more and more difficult. Together Sharon and I would study Solo Seal, the Royal Academy of Dance’s highest graded exam. After two years away, Sharon’s training had been neglected and her mother hoped Miss Hansen could get her up to standard and that she could go to the Royal Ballet School in London. To my sadness, I discovered that our friendship wasn’t the same any more. We had simply grown apart. In spite of this, I admitted to myself that it was good to have a classmate during this final exam. As I was the only other one doing the exam, the intensity of the training was very difficult to manage on my own.