Virtually every dancer who ever learnt ballet skills knows and respects the name of Dame Ninette de Valois, founder and director of the Royal Ballet.

In ballet circles, discussions that refer simply to “Madam” invariably only mean one person. This leading figure of dance died recently at the age of 102. That night the lights were dimmed at Covent Garden, the London theatre where she made her first appearance at the age of 20.

Stagestruck from an early age, she was a star with Lila Field’s Wonder Children at the age of 14. She once watched a performance of The Dying Swan by the great Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova. Memorising her movements and then rehearsing them, she was performing the solo herself two years later at the still-tender age of 15.

Born Edris Stannus in Ireland, Ninette de Valois was a celebrated prima ballerina in London’s West End by 1923. She then joined Diaghilev’s famed Ballet Russes before opening her own ballet company in London by which time she had changed her name. Her company then became the Sadlers Wells and finally The Royal Ballet in 1950.

Ninette de Valois retired in 1963 but continued to work as tirelessly as ever as a teacher, producer and lecturer. To her is attributed the insight of creating one of the finest partnerships ever seen in ballet – that of Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev.

Rest in peace, Madam.