Betty McGlinchy

Interviewed by Eve Klein on 13 August 2000
Subject: Mosman Musical Society, Mavis Sykes Ballet School

Betty McGlinchy. My main social life was around the Mosman Musical Society. I started doing ballet as soon as we hit Sydney.

Eve Klein. Where did you do ballet?

Betty McGlinchy. Mavis Sykes in Mosman. And from the age of five or six, I didn’t stop doing the shows until I was 37. I had a break while I was at school because I got sick of it all. Got sick of the exams and everything else, and from about 14 to 18, I wasn’t doing it, but for the rest of my life I was doing ballet.

Eve Klein. So what were you doing for the Mosman Musical Society?

Betty McGlinchy. The ballets. It started up again after the War, about the middle of 1946. I ran into one of the girls on the train that I used to go to ballet with, and she said they were starting a Mosman Musical Society; Mavis Sykes was looking for people who had done ballet. They wanted ballets, we did you know, the old ones, ‘Oklahoma’, and ‘Paint your Wagon’, etc. We used to do the ballets. But I was also doing classical ballet. I did Royal Academy exams. I did the Advanced; I didn’t do the solo, that was as far as you can go. But I also taught ballet for Mavis Sykes for a few years