A word to the wise: if you know you are going to a “Do It Yourself — Dance with The Royal Ballet” class to learn some of the steps from Romeo and Juliet with one of the company’s dancers, maybe don’t spend all day in your brand new patent platforms. They had been sent over from the Rue du Cherche-Midi branch of Robert Clergerie — the Rue du Cherche-Midi being a street so chic that last time I visited, its resident tramp was drinking while reading Camus’ La Chute. Yet, chic or not, new shoes equal blisters and I had three.

Next, don’t sign up for the lesson taking place on the night of your niece’s birthday tea. Even if there is a nice poetic compromise in having only a modest slab of pavlova, you can be sure your changements won’t thank you.

Thirdly, don’t leave the house hurriedly with a pair of XS leggings belonging to your daughter. Yet it was either that or staying in my kilt and jumper or rummaging in the attic for my old tutu, which I thought might be a bit de trop and a bit de dusty.

What times we are living in! Now anyone can dance with the Royal Ballet for the cost of a ticket, namely £14 (Dh78.2). It’s a new initiative by the education department at the Royal Opera House. Today they would be doing steps from the ballet of the famous, ill-fated Verona lovers; next time Giselle and after that The Nutcracker.

The class would be taken by a former soloist with the Royal Ballet, David Pickering, accompanied by a pianist on a grand piano. It isn’t often that one’s delusions of grandeur are tolerated, let alone indulged. It is quite therapeutic.

I rushed from the tea party and met my friend in the foyer of the main entrance. I took one look at her and thought, “Drat! I should have worn leg-warmers, too.” I had forgotten all about The Kids from Fame. We had to show our tickets to three sets of people on the way up to the studio and not one of them laughed, even when we took a psychosomatic wrong turn and found ourselves at the stage door where the dancers go in. I started regaling my imaginary grandchildren with the story of my Covent Garden debut: “Ballet dancers,” I heard myself explain to these unborn mites, “are kind of like the academics of show business.”

Once in the studio surrounded by mirrored walls I couldn’t help examining everyone’s outfits. There was a man in his sixties in Chinese-looking loose black clothing that smacked of Chairman Mao. A woman in a white leotard and light pink tights with pink shorts, the waistband rolled over itself, was limbering up with a professional air. I wished I had applied a little upward flick of eyeliner and some pale blue eye shadow. I hadn’t even thought to put my hair in a bun... The education officer introduced the evening. “This is going to be great fun,” she said.

“Ballet isn’t about fun,” I whispered to my pal. “Its about self-discipline and beauty and suffering.”

Memories flood back

We warmed up with floor exercises then moved on to barre work: plies, battements tendus, grands battements and so on. All those hundreds of lessons with Miss Audrey in that church hall in Highbury flooded back. The pianist played songs from the shows in order not to intimidate us and I sang along under my breath, “Fellows I meet may tell me I’m sweet/And willingly I believe...”

Then we moved into the centre and started on Kenneth MacMillan’s steps to Prokofiev’s famous score. We were courtiers at a party, proud and powerful, walking as though we owned half of Italy. It is easy to move in a way that is grand and stiff but to be grand and loose is hard. So much of life hinges on acquiring an imperial sway.

Our teacher was excellent. He would show us an easy sequence of steps and then, when we had got it, he would alter it to make it more complex; when we had grasped that, he would refine it again into something we probably could not have managed originally. For some reason this reminded me of the way skilful people break bad news. We put more and more steps together and I thought with relief how a good memory can take you quite far as a dancer.

At the end we split into two groups of 30 and performed the dance with the other group for an audience. I took my place in the front row for this was where Miss Audrey had placed me when I was nine. I gave it my all, desperate to give a good account of myself.

Who knows what the reality of the situation was, but in performance terms two things were clear: I sustained no injuries and I couldn’t have loved it more.

—Financial Times