Pauline Clayden (1922-). British ballerina

A dancer of grace, goodwill and intelligence, Pauline Clayden was born in London in 1922. She studied at the Cone Ballet School before her debut with the Covent Garden Opera in 1939. Later that year she joined Antony Tudor’s London Ballet and remained with them when they merged with Rambert Ballet. In 1942 she joined Sadler’s Wells Ballet, where she was a firm favourite of Frederick Ashton’s, and not just because she was so able artistically and temperamentally to take on successfully the roles he had created for Margot Fonteyn. Clayden was a master at understanding the style and underlying pulse and meaning of many different choreographers and approaches. She was a key member of the company for the ENSA (the Entertainments National Service Association) organised tours of Belgium and Paris in early 1945 and also of Germany at the end of that year.

In February 1946, when the Sadler’s Wells Ballet re-opened the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, she was back on the stage where she had started in 1939. Her tutu for the Fairy of the Song Birds, which she danced in the Prologue of The Sleeping Beauty on that memorable night, is now part of the Royal Opera House Collections. Her roles with the company included Una in The Quest, Ophelia in Hamlet, Chief Child of Light in Dante Sonata, Flower Girl in Nocturne, Waltz in Les Sylphides, Princess Florine in The Sleeping Beauty, the Suicide in Miracle in the Gorbals, and roles in The Fairy Queen, La Boutique fantasque, Les Sirènes and dozens of others, an amazing testament to her professionalism and versatility. When she retired in 1956 to have a family, she received a letter from Ninette de Valois, director of the Sadler’s Wells Ballet, acknowledging her gratitude for all that she had contributed to the company.

During her career with the Sadler’s Well Ballet, Pauline Clayden compiled meticulous and perfectly written notebooks in which she recorded the details of every performance in which she danced, including cast changes due to injury or illness which did not make it into the programme. These notebooks are like gold dust in the Archives of the Royal Opera House, where they are now deposited.