South Yorkshire Times — April 19, 1952
Dancing Through America
Conisbro’ Girl Flies Home After Six Months’ Tour
A six months’ tour of Canada and the United States with the Sadlers Wells Theatre Ballet, during which she touched 70 cities, about 30 States and travelled thousands of miles, has just ended for Conisbrough ballet-dancer, Miss Veronica Vail, of Elm Green Lane, Conisbrough.
Miss Vail, 25 next month, flew back from America last week and returns to London for a short season on Monday.
Hollywood holiday
Miss Vail went out to Canada with the company last September. They sailed in the Empress of France, which should have taken the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh for their royal tour. The delayed royal tour and the ballet tour did actually coincide in Montreal where the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Sadlers Wells were all staying in the same hotel.
It has been a hectic tour for Miss Vail. The company played every night except when they arrived at a town too late for a performance after travelling all day, or on the occasion when one journey took them three days and three nights. There was just one week’s holiday for them in Los Angeles and they took advantage of it.
Miss Vail visited the Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox film studios on that visit, and met stars Ronald Colman, Douglas Fairbanks and Randolph Scott. She also met the Governor General of Canada, Lord Alexander.
She did manage to go underneath Niagara Falls on the tour and up the Empire State Building—and, in fact, “do all the usual things in New York,” where she spent a glorious time buying clothes. They were good clothes, quite cheap, she says, provided you did not mind sewing up the seams and sewing on buttons yourself.
Her own dresses suffered, however. The long travelling and the frequent changes of climate, added to the fact that many of the clothes had to be hastily packed and unpacked nearly every day, gave them a rough time and even her trunk suffered several times with the changing climate.
The tour itself was a great success, although Miss Vail and the other members of the company are discouraged from talking about company matters. Some of the theatres they played in were huge, modern, with every possible convenience. Others, however, were so small that scenery could not be brought on to the stage, and the ballets had to be danced before curtains.
They were very well looked after, says Miss Vail, but they did become involved in a railway strike and a bus crash, nevertheless. “In fact,” she says, “we did all sorts of exciting things, but I can’t remember them now.” She came away with a wonderful impression of the American people who are “extremely nice” and who are “vastly different” from the American soldiers.
Met pen friend
She did make two acquaintances of some interest. One was in Toronto, where she met a Canadian pen friend for the first time. She had been writing to him since she was 11 until two or three years ago, but had never seen him. She would have known him if he had been walking down the street, she claims however; he was so like his photographs.
The other was in Chicago, when an old lady with a distinct Yorkshire accent spoke to her. She was from Conisbrough, had left many years ago, and Miss Vail believes her name was Coe.
Her return to England, although celebrated with a cold, has meant a welcome return to tea for Miss Vail. She only had three cups of it in America and on one occasion caused a stir in a restaurant by sending her tea back with full instructions as to how to make it. Even when it is made in a more orthodox way however, it doesn’t taste the same.
Miss Vail starts dancing in London again next Thursday. She plans to stay in ballet for several years yet — “America has rejuvenated me,” is her comment.