📍Ealing, London W5, UK
1923 – 1927“I was born Margaret Evelyn Hookham in Reigate, Surrey, in May 1919, and my family called me Peggy. My father, Felix, was an engineer with the British-American Tobacco Company, and my mother, Hilda, was the daughter of a Brazilian businessman, Fontes. When I was small we moved to Ealing, in west London, a quiet suburb of tree-lined streets and parks, and lived there with my older brother, Felix, until I was about eight. When I was four, my mother sent my brother and me to dancing classes with Grace Bosustow, who had a small school near Ealing Common. My mother came to my first lessons and learned the basic positions alongside me, so she could help me practise at home. I was a solemn little girl with a thick page-boy haircut and a pet chipmunk, and I loved vigorous character dances best. In July 1924, at five, I danced in a charity concert and got my first newspaper review, which praised a remarkably fine solo dance by Peggy Hookham, vigorously encored. Then my father's work took us to Louisville, Kentucky, and when I was nine, to China, where I studied ballet in Shanghai with a Russian émigré teacher, George Goncharov. My mother brought me back to London at fourteen, and I joined Ninette de Valois's Vic-Wells Ballet, where I became Margot Fonteyn, taking my mother's family name. I danced with that company, which became the Royal Ballet, for my whole career, and in my forties began a famous partnership with Rudolf Nureyev. I was made Prima Ballerina Assoluta. Ealing remembers the little girl who took her first steps there.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today