Tucked away in one of Suffolk’s rural beauty spots lives Ronald Hynd OBE, a dance legend who was recognised in the New Year Honours List.
Born in 1931, Ronald started his dancing career with Ballet Rambert before moving to the Royal Ballet, where he became a principal.
After his dancing career ended, Ronald turned his hand to choroegraphy and has enjoyed enduring international success since.
Ronald Hynd OBE. Picture: Camille Berriman
With a spry smile and charisma belying his years, Ronald explained how, as a boy, hearing Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake playing on the wireless at home ignited his fire for ballet.
“I thought it was wonderful and I thought I must go and see what it looks like,” said Ronald.
“Back then the Sadlers Wells, which became the Royal Ballet, were appearing at the New Theatre doing a triple bill. Part of Swan Lake was on the bill, but I wasn’t very impressed with it. Then I went again to see the whole of Swan Lake and that – that really got me.”
Ronald Hynd OBE with his wife Annette Page during their dancings days. Picture: Copy picture
Ronald then saw an advert in the Dancing Times, which cost a shilling back then, for young men to join Ballet Rambert.
“I thought I would love to have a go,” he said. “So on Saturday, after my paper round, I went over and [Marie] Rambert gave me a few exercises, which I could do, and she said to me ‘jump’. Then she said ‘jump higher’ and she said ‘I think you could be a dancer, but I have to speak to your father’.
“I had to go home and tell my parents. Dad put on his best suit and we went back. She asked what he earned and he said £5 a week. She couldn’t believe he could keep his family on only £5 a week, so she said they could probably arrange a scholarship for me.
“This was at the end of World War Two, when most of the male dancers were away in the forces,” said Ronald.
“She [Marie Rambert] gave me training and I became a dancer.”
His first role as a professional was in a musical with comedian and actor Arthur Askey. Next, Ronald took a role in an Ivor Novello musical, before Marie Rambert asked him to join the Ballet Rambert company.
“I went in from doing very little to doing the full principal roles. We toured all over Europe. It was a wonderful experience, a wonderful start to a career,” he said.
“After a couple of years I got itchy feet and wanted a bigger company. Rambert said ‘Well, you should join the Royal Ballet’, so I did. I rose from the corps de ballet to a top principal. I met my wife Annette [Page] and we danced everything together.”
When their daughter Louise – ‘Lulu’ – arrived, Annette decided she wanted to retire from dancing, although she would sometimes accompany Ronald around the world when he was staging one of his productions.
“Meanwhile, I have choreographed very successful ballets. The most successful was a ballet version of The Merry Widow. That has been danced all over the world,” he said.
The Merry Widow came about after The Australian Ballet’s artistic director Robert Helmann saw a short piece Ronald had choreographed. ‘You’ll be hearing from me’, the artistic director had told him afterwards.
“A few months later he called and said he was planning to do a ballet of The Merry Widow and would I like to do the choreography,” said Ronald.
“I picked myself up off the floor. Then I went to Australia and did the ballet. It premiéred there in 1975 and it was immediately a big success. From that, other companies around the world asked if they could perform it.”
The Merry Widow is still performed across the globe today, 50 years on.
“It has been very good to me, that ballet. Fifty years on and people still want it. I have been very lucky that I was invited to do it and that I was good at it. It keeps me working even now and working keeps me younger,” said Ronald.
“At the beginning of next year I’ll be going to Philadelphia to work on The Merry Widow and this month I’m going to Budapest for a revival of The Merry Widow.”
Ronald went on to choreograph Rosalinda and numerous other ballets, including Coppelia, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty.
In addition to his freelance choreograohy career, after Ronald stopped dancing with the Royal Ballet he had two terms as ballet director at the Bavarian State Opera, in Munich, from 1970-73 and again from 1984-86.
He bought his home, between Bury St Edmunds and Sudbury, 50 years ago after returning from his first stint in Munich.
“My wife and I thought we must have somewhere in the country,” said Ronald.
“We saw an advert for this cottage and we came to see it on the most appalling day in February. The house was empty and had no kitchen, no bathroom upstairs. We thought ‘this has possibilities’. We extended it and here we are, 50 years later.”
He adores his home’s location, atop what he calls ‘the Suffolk Alps’, saying: “I love this house, I love this spot.”
One of Ronald’s career highlights was being a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet and performing all the great classical roles with his wife Annette.
“We were married for 60 years,” said Ronald. “She died in 2017 from Motor Neurone Disease. She was very brave to the end.”
He described receiving the OBE in the King’s New Year Honours List as a surprise.
“When I received the letter asking if I would accept [the OBE] I was delighted,” he said. “I have had lots of congratulations which is very sweet. After all these years, some recognition.
“But I am still at it. At 93 I am still healthy enough, more or less, to be able to do it and I am still asked for my productions.
“I get younger when I’m working and it is such bliss that in between working I have time to be at home in Suffolk.”