We learn, too, of her interest in the arts and of course her devotion to ballet as she confesses her determination to be a dancer. “I’m afraid you’re what you might call a bit temperamental, my child.” “It was a non-smoker,” I told him severely. I glanced at him suspiciously, but he didn’t look as though he were being sarcastic. Her rather black-and-white view of the world is neatly juxtaposed against Sebastian’s far more liquid one as they discuss smoking on trains: “Women do smoke nowadays, you know,” said the boy pleasantly. Her imagination and sensitivity come instantly to life in her visualisation of the train as an animate being and her warm description of the London she is leaving. In the eleven pages of the first chapter, Lorna Hill paints Veronica’s personality so strongly that it’s as though we have known her for years. As it happens I enjoy ballet books, but I think I would have loved the books about Veronica even if I hadn’t given two hoots about the world of ballet. There are many reasons for this – Lorna Hill’s complete mastery of writing in the first person, her sensitive, real and often humorous portrayal of place and atmosphere, her immense skill in creating believable and fascinating characters, and of course Veronica’s own personality, which might be impulsive, illogical and occasionally exasperating but is certainly never dull. Impulsive, warm-hearted, intelligent and completely obsessed with ballet, she and her world feel real in a way that few Girls’ Own heroines do. It’s hard to believe, but Veronica Weston takes the lead in only two of Lorna Hill’s Sadlers Wells books. I felt I simply couldn’t bear Fiona making fun of it.

Crapper making it all by hand because she hadn’t got a sewing-machine, and, if the stitches were rather big and uneven, it was only because her eyes weren’t what they had been. I stared down at the frock and thought of dear Mrs.

A Dream of Sadler's Wells by Lorna Hill