The Luckiest Girl in the World

Pauline Carey is an actor, playwright, and fiction writer. She is the
author of Magic and What’s in a Name?

In 1933, when Verity Sweeny Purdy, 11, moved from Vancouver to London,
England, to study dance, she was told she was the luckiest girl in the
world. Certainly she was lucky to be able to study with Phyllis Bedells;
to have her Aunt Doffie arrange the classes, provide her a home, and
take her to concerts and the theatre; to have wealthy relatives in
Scotland and Wales introduce her to fox-hunting, maids on call, and life
with “a toffee-nosed bunch of snobs.” Her relatives gave her an
education, but life itself was not always so kind.

Purdy suffered the loss of her brother at sea. She also suffered
through a poignant attraction to a young man in which neither of them
could express their feelings until it was almost too late. As a dancer,
she had many physical defects, was continually ill, and had little faith
in herself. However, she does come to realize the strength and assurance
she’s acquired in her dance.

Purdy’s detailed account of the five years she spent in Britain is
told in a matter-of-fact style. The book includes two family trees, many
small photographs, and black-and-white sketches.