Sheila Chisholm

As my parents were die-hard Scottish nationalists (I was born in Glasgow), I was baptised Sheila Ealasaid Ann – bet you’ve never seen a middle name like that before, let alone know how it is pronounced….will keep you guessing.

Famous as a Scottish musician/composer, my father Erik also conducted various ballet companies, which stimulated my ballet-mad mind and in my dancing childhood I had some marvellous experiences, training under some of the country’s finest teachers (danced as a “pooka” in my father’s The Earth Shapers, choreographed by Margaret Morris) and was exposed to ballet, music and opera in a way children seldom are. People such as Constant Lambert, Margot Fonteyn, Ninette de Valois and Thomas Beecham were friends of my father’s whom I met. During the war I danced the Highland Fling, Coppelia Waltz and sang “Daddy wouldn’t buy me a bow-wow” with an adult group touring round hospitals for the wounded soldiers, sometimes dancing on tables tied together with rope! At 10 I was the youngest Scottish candidate to pass the, then, prestigious RAD elementary examination.

After the war, my parents emigrated to Cape Town, where I have resided ever since. My ballet studies continued under Dulcie Howes at UCT Ballet School, where I became a soloist of the company (CAPAB and CTCB’s forerunner). Graduated with distinction but, due to a serious back injury, branched into teaching. Ran my own studios until marriage and 3 daughters took over my energies. However, I kept the pot boiling by teaching for other people and picking up additional qualifications until 1975, when I became one of the first professional teachers to join the ballet department of Coloured Affairs, which had introduced a programme to teach ballet from Sub-Standard B until matric. I was invited to head the department in 1977 and with a staff of over 130 dedicated teachers supervised countrywide training of thousands of children, many of whom have become top professional dancers or teachers. The job involved staffing, arranging examinations, competitions, tours and producing a biennial production for talented children in the Cape Town precincts and I was even crazy enough in 1985 to take a party of over 100 to dance at the Grahamstown Festival. No wonder I burnt out and retired in 1993. Present hobbies include writing ballet/dance reviews for the Cape Times, was a panelist for the FNB/Vita dance awards for five years, reading, sewing, knitting caring for seven grandchildren and “u no” what at FMR.

Musical talents stretched to learning to play the piano – badly, the drums noisily, the trumpet puffily and singing wobbly.

For several years I presented Midday Concert on Mondays and Wednesdays and now present Tuesday’s edition of Classical Choice and Matinee every second Thursday from 14.00 – 16.00.