Pauline, Posy and Petrova (right-to-left)

The Fossil sisters lived in the Cromwell Road. At that end of it which is furthest away from the Brompton Road, and yet sufficiently near it to be taken to look at the dolls’ houses in the Victoria and Albert every wet day, and if not too wet expected to “save the penny and walk”.

“Gum,” Pauline, the eldest would say, “must have been a very taxi person; he couldn’t have ever thought about walking or he’d never have bought a house at the far end of the longest road in London.” Noel Streatfeild

I liked Posy best. That’s what ballet is like, it gets inside of you and quietly steals part of your soul and you know that even if you’re not very good, even if you never had a chance, a little dreaming part of you will dance Swan Lake on some invisible stage of the heart.