Not Just Another Swan: The Life of Dancer Silvia Ebert

It was 1945 and 19-year-old Silvia Ashmole stood in a London phone box to tell her parents of a dream come true; she had won a coveted place in the Royal Ballet. In Not Just Another Swan, Silvia, now 92, tells her extraordinary life story: her 1930s childhood, dodging doodlebugs in war-time London, dancing with Margot Fonteyn, Moira Shearer, Audrey Hepburn and Julie Andrews. Married to Peter Ebert, opera director and son of Carl Ebert, Glyndebourne's first artistic director, she had eight children and two stepchildren, and lived for many years wherever Peter's work took him. In 1970, they restored an old farmhouse in Italy and created a garden of lavender, roses, olive trees and herbs. A story of love and laughter as well as heartaches, of a much-loved mother, the rock that kept the family together.