Ninette de Valois's memories of leaving her childhood home in Ireland

As a ripple on a quiet stream, we children began to realize that life was preparing a big change for us.  Our parents and grandmother spoke more often of England; we began to hear something of the needs of big houses, and the necessity of only rich people living in them.  Servants threw out hints, the younger ones spoke of emigration and the older ones were seen to weep.

A day arrived one very early spring when the last trunks were strapped and we were bidden to say our special good-byes.  We were taken down the avenue to visit Mrs. Roberts, the lodge keeper's wife; she followed us as we returned to the house, crying as if her heart would break and raising her white apron to cover her face; for her grief was pagan in its stark simplicity and too immense for the duties of a pocket handkerchief.

I have one more clear-cut vision to recall of that strange day.  I can recall it with all its undiminished and astonished sadness, for children can be astonished to find themselves sad.  Change, with all its confusing upheaval, is thrust on them and in such events they play no particular part.

I was left standing midst the bustle of departure, at the window of our old nursery.  My eyes looked on the lawns and paths of those gardens that I would play in no more.  On that early gentle day in spring the sun was already making long shadows.  A gardener was cutting a long strip of turf near the top of the centre lawn; slowly and quietly it was rolled.  I watched, weighed down with an unhappiness that I could not analyse; I found myself thinking that the turf resembled nothing more than a gigantic green Swiss roll.  I knew suddenly that never again, when such things happened to change the visual outlook of the gardens, would I be able to await the why and wherefore of it all, for the great sea was to come between us and the end of the Swiss roll would be someone else's concern.

I did not cry, nor did I ask any questions as to when we might be coming back; I knew the truth and I wanted no comforting grown-up lies.  There and then I deliberately tore my heart out and left it, as it were, on the nursery window-sill.

Come dance with me: a memoir, 1898-1956 by Ninette de Valois.  1957. Pages 17-8.