PS. Bonus Christmas edition!   Laine and Victoria are attempting to tick off these 6 checkpoints on their 'moving bikes’ on a 5 day adventure over Xmas. Hoping to raise mum/granny’s staggering donation total even further. Scroll all the way down for updates and photos.

Jill’s Virtual Route (280 miles): 

• Start: Duncton, West Sussex, 1 October 2021
• Holly Farm, Piltdown, East Sussex
• RAF Farnborough
• The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
• The Royal Ballet School, White Lodge, Richmond Park
• Court Lodge Farm, Stoke, Kent
• Finish: Duncton, West Sussex by 1 December 2021

stage 1 - 8 October: Hurrah, puff, puff! Having (virtually) discovered new roundabouts, hills steeper than I remember, and passing Rob Alexander’s home in Newick, I have reached my first checkpoint: Holly Farm. (photo in gallery).

This was a pair of Victorian cottages that John and I bought in 1972 and, over the years, converted into our very own family home where Simon, Victoria and Henry grew up. Many of you will remember spending times with us there, and I remember many stories of you all too! Another time!!

stage 2 - 23 October:   Well, Puff, Puff again - here I am in Farnborough. 60 miles since my last update and, although I have been tempted, I have kept a promise made to my caring sister Annie and resisted the temptation to travel on a real road. So, virtually, I have pedalled along the A272, A24, A281 and along the Hog’s Back before arriving in Farnborough, much changed since the late 1960s.

Farnborough is a special place for me. In 1967 I was teaching ballet in East Ham, London for The Maude Wells School of Dance. This was my first teaching job at the beginning of a 35-year teaching career,  including time working at The Royal Ballet Senior School. While in East Ham, I received a phone call and the offer of a ‘blind date’ from a chap called John Mayes. John was a Squadron Leader in The Royal Air Force and at that time was a test flying instructor on aeroplanes including Hunters, Lightnings and Canberras. This was at The Empire Test Pilots’ School, based at The Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough.

I arrived for the ‘date’ at Ash Vale railway station from London, clad in full evening dress, to be met by John, dressed in his full Mess Kit driving his racing green MGB GT. In my mind, this moment remains something from a film set, and so began a romance.

There was much fun, wonderful parties (see photo in gallery) and I seem to remember some climbing in and out of windows at the Officers’ Mess. John proposed to me at the Christmas Ball that year and we married on 10 August 1968.

Anyway, enough for now as I must get back on the bike. London, here I come.  I am astounded by the support and generosity of you all - it keeps me going every day. Thank you.

stage 3 - 1 November: I have reached halfway - 140miles! Having virtually negotiated cycle lanes, bus lanes, taxies, dogs and their owners and the hectic bustle of London life, I am at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

After attending the Royal Ballet School for 5 years (each year we had to audition to be allowed to continue), I was extremely lucky to be offered a one-year contract to dance with the Royal Opera Ballet at Covent Garden. What a happy, happy day that was.

I was to dance in any of the operas that required dancing of any style of movement. As I was more of a ‘character dancer’ than a classical one, it was perfect for me (see photo in gallery). This was in the early ‘60s - an exciting time in the opera world - and I was so fortunate to work with some of the greatest singers, dancers and conductors: Maria Callas, Dame Joan Southerland, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Rudolf Nureyev, Pamela May, Kempe, Klemperer and Solti. A highlight, if I may, was to play the part of a temptress in the opera Turandot, at the feet of Luciano Pavarotti when he sang the now well-known aria "Nessun dorma". It was absolutely breath taking and I shall never forget the extended moment of awe-filled silence when he had finished singing, before the entire theatre erupted with applause.

After four fabulous years, including torturous daily ballet classes, performances, hilarious on-stage pranks and everything in between, it was time for me to move on. I had achieved all that I could have wished for and was now equipped with training and stage experience to begin what I felt was my real vocation – teaching.

stage 4 - 5 November: My route to Richmond Park passes Fitz-George Avenue, Hammersmith where, at the age of 11, I arrived from my home in rural Kent to live in digs while attending the Sadler’s Wells Ballet School. It was quite a shock to the system! One year later the school was granted a Royal Charter, becoming the Royal Ballet School, and moved to White Lodge, Richmond Park, as a boarding school.

White Lodge, originally a hunting lodge for George II, had been a home of Queen Mary who insisted that it became residence for the newly-wed HRH King George VI and Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. It had been decorated accordingly and when we arrived the silk was still on the walls and beautiful heavy curtains hung at the windows. What a wonderful place to go to school and grow up in, with the added delight of my sister joining me at the school that year.

The school ran as any other school except that we had a daily ballet class of one hour and fifteen minutes. This was the start of serious training and I was lucky enough to have the mind that picked up everything I was taught in ballet class, which has never left me. Unfortunately, not quite the case with academic matters of the classroom!

The pupils at the school came from all over the world and from every background you can imagine. It was fascinating and I learned one of the most important lessons in life; to be able to get on with anyone.

Princess Margaret was our patron and I remember dancing for her in a class in The Pavlova Studio which she officially opened. (see photo).

stage 5 - 25 November: As I leave my much-loved school in Richmond Park, I head to Court Lodge, Stoke, Rochester, Kent; the address that I had written to so many times during my White Lodge days.

I travel via the South Circular and along the familiar route driven by my parents at the start and end of each term. Once in Kent, I pass Gad’s Hill Place in Higham, home to Charles Dickens for the last 15 years of his life and subsequently a preparatory school, attended by my mother and then by the four of us; Ian (my twin brother and 20 minutes my senior), my sister Annie, my brother Nigel and me.

Cycling on through Dickensian marshland, mud flats and across rather bleak, flat land, often accompanied by a bitter cold wind, I approach Court Lodge, a fine example of a Queen Anne farmhouse (see photo) situated on the west side of the River Medway. As the county tradition dictates, this makes me a Kentish Maid, rather than a Maid of Kent, which I am sure has made all the difference!

Either way, I was certainly made in Kent and my siblings and I were all born and grew up on the farm with our parents: my father Philip, a hard-working farmer, and his wife Molly, a farmer’s daughter and very much at home in the countryside and in her wonderful garden. We had an idyllic childhood with all the adventures, fun and mischief that you might imagine growing up in such surroundings (see photo). You may be surprised to know that I rode a bike often and also a pig, albeit less frequently.

After Gad’s Hill, one by one we went away to boarding school. Ian and Nigel aged 7, Annie at 9 and myself at 11. Looking back, it must have been very difficult for my mother who then wrote to each of us twice a week for the rest of our school lives. In spite of this, or perhaps because of it, we were always a very close family and remain so today.

In the small village of Stoke stands the beautiful medieval church of St Peter and St Paul (see photo). The church has been looked after by my father and more recently renovated under the supervision and guidance of my brother, Ian. It is where I was christened, where John and I were married and is a very dear place to me.

So that is ‘home’. To this day, I have never been able to leave Court Lodge without that awful pang of homesickness within, but on I must pedal as the finish line is in sight. 

Thank you all for your generous donations and kind words - they keep me pedalling each day!

stage 6 - 1 December: I have made it!

I set off on my last leg, free-wheeling down Four Elms Hill (none still standing sadly) towards Rochester and then onto the well-known route to the finish line at Haymarsh, Duncton in West Sussex.

John and I moved to Haymarsh in 2006 and the house, built in 1609, is next door to John’s family home where he lived from the age of four until he left to join the RAF. We are fortunate to have a wonderful garden under the gaze of the South Downs, and spend much time in it.

A couple of mallet lengths along the lane is the welcoming Rother Valley Croquet Club where I have learnt to play and now coach. I endeavour to impart these new-found skills to my grandchildren, as part of my Diploma of Grannyhood, but find I am constantly competing with hockey, golf and cricket techniques, adding an unexpected element of danger to proceedings.

When I started this challenge, I hoped to raise a few hundred pounds for Dystonia UK and keep myself mentally and physically active. In part, this was also because I felt I should ‘do my bit’ for others, having received some fantastic care and support from many people over the last couple of years following operations and chemotherapy for colon cancer.

As it has turned out, the challenge has allowed me to reconnect with so many friends from over the years and take a walk along Memory Lane with you. Very many thanks to you all for your generosity and for allowing me to reminisce - it has been so much more of a success than I could have ever imagined.

Jill x

Thank you all very much for your donations. I am blown away by your generosity towards such an important charity, Dystonia.

Full details of my challenge are below...

Hello to you all!

You may not be aware, but I suffer from Dystonia, having first had symptoms over 20 years ago. Dystonia, which is a relatively unknown neurological condition, presents with uncontrollable and sometimes painful muscle spasms. It is a lifelong condition that affects both adults and children that currently has no cure. 

At first I was unable to identify the symptoms, settling for a general diagnosis of depression, although I was sure that this was not the case. Time passed, I popped the recommended pills (as my children would say), but I didn't feel any better and became increasingly frustrated and desperate.

However while watching a TV programme on an unusual illness, Dystonia, I remember shouting out "That is it!" and after three visits to my GP, was referred to a neurologist, diagnosed correctly and now have regular treatment to control my condition.

Now, to raise funds for Dystonia UK, each day during October and November I am going to cycle (virtually, on my exercise bike) from my home in Duncton, West Sussex to places that are important to me.

This is a round trip of 280 miles (6 miles a day) and although it may not be the type of 'super-hero ' endurance event that all of you Lycra-clad adventurers are familiar with, for this 78-year old former ballet dancer who has spent very little time on a bike or in a gym, I can promise you it will be a challenge!

All funds that I raise will go towards Dystonia UK which helps with early diagnosis of Dystonia, thus enabling sufferers to get help during a worrying and lonely time of uncertainty about their health.  

Thank you for reading this. I am now going to jump on my bike!

Love to you all

Jill

Dystonia is a neurological movement disorder that is estimated to affect at least 100,000 in the UK. Dystonia UK is for children and adults with dystonia, carers and clinicians, fundraisers and families, medical professionals and our amazing members and supporters, all working side by side. Through our fundraisers and supporters, we can carry on our mission, so thank you!