A FORMER professional ballerina undergoing treatment for cancer was delighted to be asked to join in a performance of The Nutcracker at Sobell House Hospice.

Auriel Drobeck-Condon, 66, wore her ballet shoes once again after three years when two dancers from Elmhurst School of Dance performed for patients, staff and visitors.

The former dancer of Woodstock, who used to own Dance School Auriel Condon in Germany, was asked to join them and said: “I felt as though I never left.”

“I was so thrilled they asked me to join in, I have not done anything like that since I was taken ill suddenly.

“I did not think I would mange to do a plie and get back up. It felt like that one part of my life had come to an end.

“The dancers were incredible. It was great and to do it again was tremendous, the dancers were brilliant, very young but very talented.

“It was amazing after three major operations and a year of chemotherapy. When I dance I just forget everything, it just cheers me up.”

Mrs Drobeck-Condon was diagnosed with bowel cancer three years ago and had the tumour removed, but it spread to her liver so she had that removed too.

She said: “The doctor gave me six months to live so I came back to England and had my chemotherapy over here.

“I was really quite ill from the treatment and Sobell picked me up. I have massages and hugs and they are just so loving. That was two years ago now and I am still having treatment and they are still picking me up.

“They have been a very important part [of the recovery] and are like family to me.”

On Thursday, June 18, patients watched the dancers warm up and they asked Mrs Drobeck-Condon to join them before a performance of the Tchaikovsky classic at the hospice, based in Oxford’s Churchill Hospital.

The idea came from a former patient’s husband Jim Harris, whose late wife Tracey passed away at the hospice in March after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2011.

Mr Harris, a director of the Health Claims Bureau Group in Didcot, said: “As a ballet teacher, Tracey was often talking about how dance can provide solace and calm for distressed people, and I saw the comfort it brought her during her illness.

“Elmhurst is a vocational dance school with whom I am involved as a member of their governing board.

“The school has an outreach programme, whereby dancers visit hospices around the UK, and put on a short dance for the benefit of patients, visitors, and staff. This has been incredibly well received and I wanted to make this available to Sobell House as a way of repaying the love and kindness shown to Tracey when she was on the ward.”