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Hope for me yet…..

14th January 2008 by Helena 3 Comments  

Yesterday Bea and I had a ballet class. Well, I say class, but it was less professional than that. I taught her the steps and arm movements with the help of a book written by Darcy Bussell called The Young Dancer. As I moved with not much grace from first to second position I thought, as I do most days, about how much I regret not pursuing my fantasy and going for a career as a ballet dancer.

John LoweBut there is hope for me yet. I read today that an 88-year-old-man is about to make his balleting debut on stage this Sunday. He has been dancing since he was 79 and will be performing in Prokofiev’s The Stone Flower, the composer’s last ballet, which premiered at the Bolshoi in 1954. Now it will be the talk of Ely, a Cambridgeshire city most famous (until this coming Sunday) for its Norman Cathedral.

John Lowe, as the new Nureyev is called, says he can’t understand why more men don’t do ballet. “I went to a dance school in the high street in Ely and asked if I could do tap and ballet and they said ‘well of course you can’ and I’ve been doing it ever since,” says the retired teacher and grandfather of 11. “I see these people crawling around , hunched over smoking a cigarette – they should be doing ballet.”

I couldn’t agree more. And I am going into training now. Covent Garden here I come. In another forty years I may just be ready for you.

Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2008


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3 thoughts on Hope for me yet.....

  • Georgie says:
    14th January 2008 at 4:32 pm

    Good for you! and him! I feel like that about ballroom…. if only I had the time – maybe I’ll wait till I hit my 70’s…

  • helena says:
    14th January 2008 at 5:07 pm

    Get those dancing shoes out now. I have TODAY enrolled both girls for ballet classes in Montpellier, so they won’t have to be pensioners by the time they make their stage debut.
    Hx

  • Sharyn G says:
    14th January 2008 at 6:33 pm

    Helena

    I took ballet lessons as a small child and again as an adult for the exerise. A less talented and coordinated student has never existed in the civilized world, but it was great fun and I participated with great gusto. I credit it with being able to chew gum and walk at the same time. Mostly I liked the tutu and leotards and thought I looked spiffy. It was kind of like tennis. I can’t play for spit but I looked great in the tennis whites!

    Sharyn G.

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Helena Frith Powell was born in Sweden to a Swedish mother and Italian father, but grew up mainly in England. She is the author of eleven books, translated into several languages including Chinese and Russian. She wrote the French Mistress column The Sunday Times about life in France for several years. She is a regular contributor to the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, The Times, Daily Telegraph, Tatler Magazine and Harper’s Bazaar.

Helena has been the editor of four magazines, including M Magazine, a supplement for the Abu Dhabi-based National Newspaper and FIVE, a high-end fashion glossy, also published in Abu Dhabi. Helena was also editor-in-chief of 360 Life, a quarterly glossy magazine published with the Sports 360 Newspaper in Dubai, part of the Chalhoub Group.

Helena contributes regularly to UK-based newspapers and magazines and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge. She is working on a thriller set in Sweden as well as a novel about the relationship between Virginia Woolf and Katherine Mansfield called Sense of an Echo.

In 2022 her short story The Japanese Gardener came second in the Fish Publishing Short Story Prize. One of her stories was also shortlisted for the Bridport Short Story Prize. When she’s not writing, she works as a headhunter for the media and entertainment industry for the Sucherman Group. 

Helena, who was educated at Durham University, lives in the Languedoc region of France with her husband Rupert and their three children.

Bibliography

More France Please, we’re British; Gibson Square 2004

Two Lipsticks and a Lover 2005; Gibson Square (hardback)

All You Need to be Impossibly French; (US version of above) Penguin 2006

Two Lipsticks and a Lover; Arrow Books (paperback) 2007

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (hardback) 2006

Ciao Bella Gibson Square; (paperback) 2007

So Chic! (French version of Two Lipsticks) Leduc Editions 2008 (also translated into Chinese, Russian and Thai)

More, More France; Gibson Square 2009

To Hell in High Heels; Arrow Books 2009 (also translated into Polish)

The Viva Mayr Diet; Harper Collins 2009

Love in a Warm Climate; Gibson Square 2011

The Ex-Factor; Gibson Square 2013

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles; Gibson Square 2016

The Arnolfini Marriage; Amazon Kindle December 2016

Smart Women Don’t Get Wrinkles (paperback); Gibson Square spring 2018

The Longest Night; Gibson Square spring 2019

 

 

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