I can do the splits at 80 – and still have wine, crisps and Rolo puddings

At the age of 80 I walk about 5km a day and I do my stretching every other day. Although that is really for vanity. I have to admit it. I just don’t want to stiffen up. I can still do the splits but I’m not a fanatic. I don’t want to stay down there for ages, but I’m not in agony. If you were to ask my son what my secret to staying healthy is, he would say it is white wine, Rolo puddings and Nice ‘n’ Spicy Nik Naks.

It is true. I enjoy all these things. I look forward to a glass of wine as I make my dinner. It is a pleasure. I am a small bon vivant. I don’t mean that in a flattering way. It’s just you would usually think of a larger person when you think of those words. I haven’t measured myself since I was 16, but then I was 5ft 1in. I imagine I’m somewhere beneath that now.

That I am still so healthy – I don’t want to come across as smug in any way, because I’m not – is a combination of genetics, discipline and luck with my physique.

I joined the Royal Ballet’s Touring Company at 19 where we would do eight performances a week for six months of the year. We were never off the stage. I do think if you asked dancers to do that now they would laugh in your face. I grew up in New Zealand in the 1950s where my parents owned a catering business, and loved the arts. So when a lady who had danced at Sadler’s Wells came home and opened a school, I became her first pupil at age six.

In 1961, we moved to England so I could study at the Royal Ballet School before I went into the company in 1964, at £9 a week. My father had a romantic image of England so me going to the Royal Ballet School was the perfect excuse for our departure. They stayed with me until 1971 and then returned to New Zealand.

As part of the Royal Ballet we would tour from September to November and then January to March. There would be a London season at the Opera House but also a continental tour in the summer. We had an amazing tour in 1968 of which Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev were the stars. We danced mostly on open air stages; Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Monaco. It was extraordinary.

But it wasn’t always so glamorous. A lot of time was spent touring cold towns in England. We would often be in freezing cold church halls with portable barres while the theatre stage was being prepared for the evening performance. With so many performances there was no time for rehearsals. We were non-stop; doing twice the work as the resident company (something which caused occasional drama) but being paid exactly the same.

I became a coryphée – the ‘leader of the ensemble’. But even if you moved up a notch you were still on every night. During the London season we rehearsed at Baron’s Court, and finally had mirrors to see ourselves in. It was amazing. Although not perhaps if you’d put on a little weight on tour.

I had been in the company for six years when I found out I was pregnant. When I realised it meant I didn’t have to go to Coventry for a fourth time, I was thrilled. It was a joy when I rang the director, John Field, and said I wouldn’t be coming. I left the company in 1969, aged 25, and in 1970 had my first child, Mark, with my husband James. That year, the touring company was disbanded; it later became Birmingham Royal Ballet but a lot of dancers were let go.

My daughter Daisy was born in 1976. When the children were small I didn’t do any exercise at all. Then, from the ages of 39 to 65, a couple of times a week I would put on all my ballet gear and pointe shoes, weight a chair down with interior magazines to use as my barre and would do a full barre, back and front. Then I would do some little jumps in the centre, followed by some stretching. I found a Schubert Impromptu that fitted it perfectly.

It wasn’t to keep fit or look good. I was missing dancing to music and it really fulfilled me. I felt good at the end of it, not sweaty, but revitalised spiritually, which I know sounds arty farty.

Even now when ballet music comes on, or some lovely Chopin, I find myself moving around the kitchen. I find it very hard not to when I hear beautiful music.

I was never hyper-mobile, like Sylvie Guillem with six o’clock legs, but then we didn’t have to do that when I was a dancer. We didn’t do Pilates and all this hyper-extension training that they do now. Yes we got injured sometimes, but given we did so much, we were rarely injured and most of us are still here. I do worry about the girls today, about the condition they will be in when they get to my age. Dancers aren’t elite athletes in my book. They’re fit artists.

I stopped dancing at home when I downsized age 65 and I no longer had the space to chuck my legs around. I’d also just given up driving, so I thought: “Girl, you’re 65, you’re going to be doing a lot of walking.” From then on I’ve been a very impatient, brisk walker. Although funnily enough, my daughter is a lot taller than me, so when she takes these great strides, I’m running along like a dachshund.

I did a bit of jogging when I turned 50 – just a quarter of an hour and then back home. I found it quite boring quite frankly. Until two years ago I did all the cleaning at home and carrying a vacuum cleaner is good exercise. Now though, I have a wonderful cleaner.

Generally I stretch after a bath, when the muscles are warm. I might do some tendus or pliés using a chair but mostly I lie on my back and warm up my hamstrings one at a time, drawing my leg towards my face, and then turning my knee in and out until I feel warm enough to do the splits. There is no greater discipline than classical ballet, and this is where I’m lucky. If you were in a triple bill, you only had 20 minutes to change costumes and be ready. You have to be very organised and disciplined. Now, when I cook I look like a surgeon with everything laid out.

I’m not very greedy and I don’t eat a lot. Not because I’m trying to stay slim, but because I’m not a very big person. It’s hard to dance if you’re stuffed full of food and I wonder if I simply got used to taking a lot of exercise and not eating too much. Normally I have a late breakfast and an early dinner, unless I’m going out for lunch. Breakfast might be some instant porridge oats and a satsuma or passion fruit. Or perhaps toast and marmalade followed by fruit. If I’ve got an avocado I’ll mash that up and have it on toast. It’s not a good thing, but I’ve found as I get older, I just need less food. There are biscuits in the cupboard for visitors, but I don’t snack at all – it means I really look forward to my dinner.

Stir-fry, chicken or perhaps beef, is my favourite thing, so I do a lot of chopping. I also have pasta with a homemade tomato sauce. I always like to have a salad with it or lamb’s lettuce with a vinaigrette. Then I’ll have my pudding and perhaps a Daim Bar which I buy in boxes from the local shop. My husband James, who died in 1985, always had to have a pudding. It was a legacy of public school where everything was so disgusting, pudding was the one thing you looked forward to.

I didn’t drink until I got married. We worked so hard when I was performing, there wasn’t much socialising. James, being an urbane man, insisted on wine with dinner. When I saw my doctor recently she said my liver and kidney function were beautiful but my blood tests showed I’m not absorbing vitamin B12 very well. “Alcohol?” she asked. “Yes,” I said. Two glasses a night. One while I’m chopping, the other with dinner. After that I deliberately cut back ahead of my next blood test and it did show better absorption.

I still have my two glasses though. Wine is a huge pleasure. Obviously if the doctor said: “You will die next week if you don’t stop”, then I would. And I can stop, as long as I don’t put any in the fridge. Looking forward to that glass of wine is a real pleasure. Like the crossword is and seeing my friends.

The Telegraph crossword, reading books and the piano keep me mentally agile. I read in bed until very late, which means I get up late. I need to have at least seven hours of sleep and I’m very lucky as that is what I get.

I take statins because my mother, who lived to almost 95, (she was a serious gardener and could still almost put her head on her knees in her 90s), had high cholesterol. Genetically I seem to have inherited that from her as I don’t eat a lot of butter and cream. I think I also inherited my flexibility from her. But I also did my barre for all those years, which kept those tendons stretched.

My father died at 57 and I often think of all the years he missed out on. I adore my children, grandchildren and friends. I go to the Opera House a lot and I love my life. I really do.

I feel incredibly grateful to be able to see, hear and walk. And given I can do these things I must live life to the full. And I do.