Free The Varnished Untruth by Pamela Stephenson Page A

yet . . . Some very exciting things happened this week at school. We were having a normal ballet lesson when in walked Ram Gopal who is a very famous Indian dancer. Miss Wheelwright, my ballet mistress, asked Kay and myself to dance for him the dance we had been preparing for our exam which was an enchaînment. I wished that I’d had my autograph book with me. You know how the school serves hot lunches for us, well, yesterday the junior school revolted against the school lunches. It all started by a girl called Adrienne going up to Matron and saying, ‘Do you think this stuff is food because I don’t think it is, I think it is muck,’ and pushed it in front of Matron’s nose. When she was sent to Miss Valerie she told her to go and get all the children who didn’t like the school food. Three quarters of them turned up (I didn’t). At the end of the day their stories of it had stretched so far that one story said that the cook’s arm had been broken! Nobody got into much trouble though. I will write again soon.
    Your loving grandchild,
    Pammey
    P.S. Please excuse my writing.
     
    Halfway through that year I wrote a musical play,
Cabbages and Kings
, which the pupils performed with full encouragement and support from the teachers. It owed more than a little something to
My Fair Lady
but I felt wonderfully appreciated. At the very end of my time at the Arts Educational Trust – once I turned twelve and was legally allowed to perform professionally – I took part in a short run of
The Nutcracker Suite
with the Festival Ballet Company at the Royal Festival Hall. All right, I didn’t really dance; I just played a toy soldier (black shiny cardboard hat, navy jacket with epaulettes, white stretch stirrup trousers and shoes with spats), which involved a bit of marching and pretending to let off a fake cannon. But, for me, it was thrilling to be on a real stage and watch the proper ballerinas perform.
    5th December 1961
    Dear Nanna,
    Thank you very much for the gift you sent me. Thank you also for the letter you sent me which contained a little hint that I should write a letter to you. I am sorry that I haven’t written for such a long time but so many things have been happening that I have not had much time. Firstly I have been chosen to appear at the London Royal Festival Hall in a ballet called ‘Casse Noisette’ – ‘The Nutracker’ – and although it is a wonderful experience it has already involved several inconveniences such as rehearsing all day every day up ’til Christmas when we have actually broken up. Then because my twelfth birthday came rather late there has been some trouble getting my licence through. Actually the ballet is on for three weeks but as we are leaving on the second of January I may only be in it for one week. I shall probably be paid about ten pounds. I have already received a long list of makeup which will cost pounds. I have written a musical play which has had three or four successful performances and last Friday a photographer came to our school to take some photos of myself with several members of the cast. I am sitting on a bench in one of Mummy’s laboratories watching a lady taking the innards out of a hen. It looks so ghastly that I have turned my chair round!
    Your loving grandchild,
    Pamela
    P.S. I hope you can understand my writing because I can’t!
     
    Like all little ballet students, I harboured a secret longing to be Clara, the young girl whose party and subsequent night-time dream forms the backbone of the
Nutcracker
story. The lucky girl who landed that role got to wear a pink, flowing nightdress, dance on pointe, and hold hands with John Gilpin, the gorgeous male dancer in a short jacket and white tights who played the prince. I noticed he had a very muscular bottom and paraded a mysterious big bulge in the front of his pants. Now, I did know that boys had penises because a primary school boy had shown me his floppy little willie on our front porch in Thompson Street,