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To train at the feet of the great Marie Rambair was as much of a hardship as it was an

honour.

The diminutive Rambé had been born Sivier Ramban to a Polish father and a Russian mother,

and she contains the icy strength of both nations, as well as a fierce

determination and spiky exterior that had destroyed as many students as she trained.

Even Rambair's grandest love affair had begun as a matter of business.

At a dinner party in 1917, she was introduced to the playwright and actor Ashley Dukes,

who was then a soldier on a few days' leave.

They politely and formally agreed to court one another,

and as Rambé herself later wrote of their unorthodox romance,

after four days of personal meetings and seven months of correspondence,

we were married on March 3rd, 1918. But despite the aloof approach to this union, Rambé

devoted herself to it heart and soul, as with all other pursuits in her life. If her job was

worth doing, then it was worth doing well.

And despite the fact that her partnership to Ashley Dukes was one of convenience,

it lasted for 41 years, only ending with Duke's death in 1959,

and produced two daughters, Angela and Helena.

...