But the important thing about learning to wait, I feel sure, is to know what you are waiting for.

So it is necessary that we should learn to be alone.

I have always found it difficult to wait for things - whether it was to see my father or sailor brother, Alan, again after their long sea trips, or the chance of a better job, or even new curtains.

But the delights of solitude don't only consist of dreaming. Next in enjoyment, I think, comes planning.

Naturally enough when I was a young dancer, I was terribly anxious to get ahead, and to get ahead quickly. I was impatient with all those older people who talked of the long grind to the top, who turned me down for jobs I knew I could do.

Everyone needs some time to themselves.

What, I sometimes wonder, would it be like if I lived in a country where winter is a matter of a few chilly days and a few weeks' rain; where the sun is never far away, and the flowers bloom all year long?