Episode 1
Episode 1
A myth and a dream
Jake Warren explores a family myth about a mysterious woman in his mum’s past, and begins his search for her. Debbie Gayle recounts her difficult childhood and her dreams of ballet stardom.
Transcript
Finding Natasha, Episode 1
Jake Warren To dance en pointe means to balance, spin, hop, pounce, and linger all whilst on the very tip of your toes. It's strength and skill built up over years of arduous, almost ritual–like training. It is said that ballet dancers are not unlike violins. They are merely instruments on which choreographers perform, striving for perfection, mastering the art of ballet. It can't just be a matter of choice for a dancer, but of complete determination. Only if you dedicate your entire life have you got any chance of making it. Your feet are black, blue, and misshapen. But on you must dance and keep smiling.
I only know any of this because of my mum, Debbie. She was a ballet dancer. A really good one. She was someone who was earmarked for potential greatness. Nearly fifty years ago now, she became the first British ballet dancer thought to be good enough to receive a scholarship to train in the Soviet Union with the undisputed masters of ballet. Unfortunately, things didn't go well. Her time there was scarring at best, traumatic at worst. And it could have been much, much worse had it not been for an eighteen–year–old Russian girl called Natasha, who saved my mum and then disappeared from her life. So, that's what this podcast is about.
My name is Jake Warren, and this is probably the most important thing I'll ever do. I'm trying to understand what my mum went through all those years ago in the Soviet Union. I have no idea where this is going to go, but this is my attempt at finding Natasha.
For all intents and purposes, my life has been pretty standard. I was born and still live in London. My parents separated when I was just a baby. And although I saw my dad a lot, I grew up living with my mum. Now, if I was to try and objectively describe my mum, I would say she is warm, caring, and, frankly, a bit bonkers. She is definitely someone who lives in the moment. One of my earliest memories is of a small blackboard hanging in our kitchen all throughout my childhood, and on it was chalked, in her badly scrawled handwriting, Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first. My mum is a passionate animal lover. And now I might get into trouble saying this, but I feel she is very much turning into one of those crazy cat lady clichés.
Debbie Gayle You could teach, like, little rollovers. [INAUDIBLE]. Are you gonna do the rollovers? Are you gonna do the rollovers? [INAUDIBLE].
Jake Warren That is my mum, Debbie. My Uncle Nic always says...
Uncle Nic Whilst her therapist said that she was clinically BIN (bonkers in the nut) her cats said she was damn perfect. And my sister's always gone with the
cats’ opinion rather than therapists’, which saves a lot of money on therapy incidentally.
Jake Warren Most people who meet my mum are completely disarmed by her personality.
Uncle Nic My dear sister, exasperating at times. Very, very good at shopping. Jake Warren I’m also reminding you that, in theory, the whole world is
listening to this. So, uh...
Uncle Nic Let me just backtrack, uh, a teeny–tiny bit. Someone who, in her time, was one of the most capable dancers of her generation.
Jake Warren Growing up, I remember there was always a bit of a shroud of secrecy over my mum's past. And as is usually the case with memories, there were gaps in the timeline. The very few details I did know were foggy at best. I knew my mum was a ballet dancer and I knew she was a good one. I also knew that she had danced in Russia at some point. But that was about the extent of my knowledge. It was just never discussed. Even my closest family didn't seem to have the answers.
Uncle Nic I had very little knowledge of what was going on. For example, Debbie flew off to Russia, and I knew nothing about this at the time. I didn't know she was going there. Nobody told me or I didn’t ask. Whatever. Similarly, I never knew when she came back.
Jake Warren The only thing I really knew was that even before I was born, I was supposedly destined to become a dainty ballerina myself and I was to be called Natasha.
Debbie Gayle As normal, I, uh, was convinced I knew best and I was convinced I was having a girl. And, uh, when I actually was taken to hospital, it was a little bit of a drama. I end up having to have an emergency caesarian. When I came round, the nurse was sort of tapping my cheek and she said, “Oh, Mrs. Warren, you've had a beautiful baby boy. And what are you going to call him?” Apparently, I said, “Natasha.” Whereupon my ex–husband looked very shocked apparently and said, “Don't worry. I will talk her out of that one.”
Jake Warren This Natasha was clearly someone really important to my mum. But I had no idea why. And at first, I didn't realise that she had anything to do with mum's love of ballet, which was always around when I was growing up. And although I wasn't really interested in ballet over the years, I'd picked up dribs and drabs of my
mum's past. It was never anything concrete, though. And it wasn't until just a few years ago when I learned what happened to her in Russia and who Natasha was.
I think she finally told me then, because she got diagnosed with cancer. She's fine now. But at the time, she thought she might die. And I don't know. Maybe she didn't want the story of Natasha to die with her. And so, one day, it wasn't a particularly special occasion or anything, but I remember it vividly and always will. One day we were sitting in the living room, and I could feel something hanging in the air like she wanted to say something, but she didn't know how to begin. So, I waited. And then, it just came: The whole story of ballet, of going to the Soviet Union at 17, of how she almost died there, and of Natasha.
When she finished, I was a little taken aback. There was so much pain in her past that I'd never noticed. I always assumed that, as my mum, she had it all together. And she's always been very open with me. Arguably, sometimes, too much so, which is why I never even imagined that she could have been holding something like this inside for so long. And at first, I thought it mostly came down to her just being worried about Natasha. She'd been wondering about this woman for decades. But the more I learned about the story, the more complex I realised Natasha's role was in it. Mum had tried to find her. But after a few failed attempts, she just sort of gave up.
Debbie Gayle I feel very guilty about that, really. I should have made more effort. I... Part of me was sort of frightened to do so as well. I – I sort of had a feeling that, perhaps, she wasn't alive anymore. I don't know why I felt that, but I did feel that for a while. And I just didn't know how to. I mean, you know, I’m a bit of a technophobe. I don't even have e-mail on my phone. I’ve just got the hang of texting, you know. I mean, you know.
Jake Warren I have to admit my mum's technological limitations do have an upside. She hasn't quite mastered how to stalk my every move on social media yet. But when she had finally shared the story with me, I guess my journalistic instincts kicked in. I decided there and then that I was going to either find Natasha or at least find out what happened to her.
I started a scavenger hunt, gathering the few materials and information I had or that I knew existed. I knew there was a grainy photo of Natasha that had lived by my mum's bed since before I was born.
Uncle Nic It was a beautiful old, teeny-tiny silver photo frame. There’s a picture this dark-eyed, obviously Slav-looking girl. And I used to wonder about it first. Who is this girl who seems to be planted amidst a whole host of otherwise recognisable familial faces?
Jake Warren I also remembered there were photos of my mum dancing from her time in Russia, probably in the attic somewhere. There was some press cuttings, too. I vividly remember this one headline from when I was little: The girl who caught Russian eyes. It had this big picture of my mum dancing at seventeen. Seeing that picture of her as a teenager made me think about what it could have been like for her going behind the Iron Curtain in the seventies , when the Soviet Union was viewed as the ultimate enemy.
Churchill From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent.
Jake Warren A notoriously restricted regime.
VO But one thing Stalin did not give them, their freedom. And that, to
countries outside the Iron Curtain, means all.
Jake Warren With the threat of nuclear war always on everyone's mind.
VO The Russian foreign minister maintains this silence about Russia's atomic progress in his address. He accuses the West of planning an atomic war.
Jake Warren It must have been overwhelming going there alone. And although she did tell me what happened when she got to Russia, she never actually explained why she went there.
I wanted to get the full picture. But for some reason, she didn't feel comfortable talking to me about it.
Sandra Ferrari I think it's normal. I think we just have an image of our parents that they're these super humans without issues. They also feel the pressure to maintain that illusion for us.
Jake Warren This is Sandra Ferrari, by the way. She's Message Heard’s head of production.
Sandra Ferrari But also, maybe, as your mother, she doesn't want to show that side of herself, that vulnerable side. It's a really hard thing to do. I can't even imagine talking to my own parents about that. It could be that she might be more comfortable talking to me, someone who's a bit more of a stranger to her.
Jake Warren I think so, because it's obviously really important. We need to understand why she went to Russia and how she went to Russia and all of the experiences and what led up to that.
Sandra Ferrari Okay. Well, let me give it a go.
Sandra Ferrari Well, first let's do, like, a standard kind of introduction. Like, what's your name? How old are you?
Debbie Gayle [INAUDIBLE] Sandra Ferrari Okay.
Debbie Gayle Well, physically, I'm sixty-three, almost sixty-four. But I think, mentally, I'm probably about... Maybe I'm nineteen now. Probably. I was Debbie Gayle before I was married. The name Gayle, actually, my father was Hungarian. He was a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust who escaped Hungary in the 1937. His parents had heard about trouble coming, and he was able to get a sponsor—‘cause they have family in America—to go to America. So, um, he was on a boat docked in Southampton. War was declared. Then, he never got to America.
But anyway, his name was István, which is Stephen in English, [INAUDIBLE]. So, when... Well, later on, he realised that he was never going back or able to go back. His entire family were wiped out in the Holocaust and he had to build a life in England. He changed his name. And so, what he did was he took the G, the A, the Y, the L, and he dropped the U, and he dropped the I, and he put an E on, and he got Gayle. Sorry. That's a really long–winded way to say my name.
Jake Warren My granddad was born in 1921 and was the only one of his family to survive the Holocaust. It was by sheer luck and some foresight that he got out through a Kindertransport. But for a brief period of time, thousands of Jewish children were allowed to escape the Nazi-occupied European countries. My granddad, being the younger of two brothers, was chosen to leave everyone and everything behind. After the war ended and he realised he had to get through life alone, he had to find a way to emotionally come to terms with it.
The story goes that my grandfather, who was a keen skier, went up into the Swiss Alps for two weeks in total isolation to ski and to just think. At the end of the two weeks, he had decided on two possible paths: He was either going to end his life there and then and be done with it or he was going to come back to life with a blank slate, never to discuss his murdered family ever again. Fortunately, the latter is the path he chose. But there was a lot of hurt, because of this decision.
Debbie Gayle I think something in him, almost in his personality, it was almost like shafted in two. And he became a very successful man. He was very a charismatic man. A very loving and warm and funny in some ways and credibly intellectual man. But on an emotional level, um, you know, he was
terribly, terribly damaged. Well, obviously, as anybody would be. So, with the shutting down of his past, I was fascinated and wanted to know about whether I had grandparents or none. [INAUDIBLE].
My mother has said to me very, very early on, “You must never, ever speak to daddy about his family, because this will cause him terrible pain.” So, I sort of had this shadow hanging over me and I didn't know and understand what it was or why. I just knew that it was something I could never talk about.
Sandra Ferrari So, you didn't feel close to him?
Debbie Gayle I did in some ways. I was desperate to impress him, looking back. He came from that generation where my brother, who is immensely talented musically—he was a brilliant at piano and he's since become a really highly respected academic writer. My father is sort of quite old fashioned, really. I think, you know, he was far more interested in my brother's education.
Sandra Ferrari How about – how about with your mum? What was she like?
Debbie Gayle I didn't have a good one relationship with my mother. I... It was good when I was a child. But as soon as I began to grow up into a young woman, sort of thirteen years old, it – it wasn't good. My mother was deeply unhappy. She married my father. You know, she was nineteen when she married him. He was in his early thirties, and my father wasn't ready or able to live the life of a settled husband. He was – he – he was a traveler. He never had to stop traveling. He was always traveling around the world.
But I think my mother was desperately unhappy and desperately lonely. And, um, it was the days before Prozac. Bless her. I wanna think she definitely needed some help.
Jake Warren It was in this environment that ballet presented itself as the perfect obsession and form of escapism for her. Although at the very beginning, even that was actually my grandmother's idea, an extension of her own unfulfilled passion.
Debbie Gayle She had always loved ballet. She loved the theatre. And she didn't really have any talent for it. But she loved it. And she... I remember she particularly loved tap dancing. She had these red tap shoes and she used to tap away in kitchens, sometimes, which was amusing. But she took me to a ballet class. The very first ballet class I went to, I was four.
Jake Warren And at first, she struggled. She didn't know whether it was because she couldn't accept that she wasn't good enough or because she wasn't the centre of
attention among all the other girls. Either way, she started acting out, not leaving my grandmother any choice, but to take her out.
Debbie Gayle So, nothing happened then until I was about nine. I don't know how it came about. But she took me to a local ballet teacher called Madame [NAME]. Couldn't make it up. Lovely lady. White Russian. And she said the magic words to my mother, which obviously were like nectar to her, is, “Oh, Debbie has some talent.” So, of course, my poor mother, you know, seized on this and thought, Right. Well, we'll run with this.
Sandra Ferrari Do you think she had a lot of expectations around what was going to happen for you in ballet?
Debbie Gayle She did. She absolutely did. And I think like anybody, you know, if you underachieve yourself, you tend to look to your child to – to do it for you. But I – I do remember I always felt different. I know that's so trite. Everybody says that. I felt different, because my mother never stopped reminding me that daddy was Hungarian and he was different. And he also spoke with an accent and quite a strong accent, which he lost over the years. He looked different. I knew subconsciously there was some big secret, because of his past. And I felt different, because I'd never just felt I joined in with the other little girls at school.
Jake Warren I think being different can leave you feeling like you're teetering on an edge. On the one hand, it can plunge you into the depths of your loneliness. But the slightest nudge can also tip you to the other side.
Debbie Gayle When Madame [INAUDIBLE] announced to my mother that she thought I had talent, suddenly, I thought, Oh. Instead of feeling different in this negative way, I suddenly felt this huge feeling of positivity, which I think I'd never felt.
Jake Warren After a short break, my mum decides that she wants to go to Russia. We'll be right back.
[MIDROLL]
Debbie Gayle With hindsight, I don't think I was particularly any more talented, really, than any other little girl. I – I had a natural aptitude. Physically, I was sort of made for it in a way. And my mum had made friends with someone who worked at the ballet school, who had gone to a theatre school called Arts Educational, which did ballet and drama and everything. And she said to my mother, “Oh, I think Debbie should go there.” And I went there just after I turned eleven.
Jake Warren At Arts Educational, they'd first learn normal subjects alongside performance arts. But a few years in, when someone showed real talent for a specific art form, they'd be offered to focus on it almost completely. When she was fourteen years old, my mum got the option to abandon all other classes in exchange for ballet. At first, dancing may have been about impressing her parents. But once she realised that she actually had a gift for it, she really fell in love with it. She didn't hesitate and accepted the school's offer.
Sandra Ferrari So, all your eggs were kind of going into one basket.
Debbie Gayle Yes, they were. Tragically. And I joke about. I say the word tragic, but actually, there's an element of truth in that. Because it's an incredibly hard life, ballet, and it can be a very, very unhealthy one. And I was very, very solitary. And I think when I started to specialise in ballet, it became this almost obsession and utterly overwhelming. And I didn't really have any normal life outside. And it's the normal life outside that prepares you for life, you know, because ballet is a short career anyway and, uh, it's a very tough one.
Sandra Ferrari Do you think it was because it would be the thing that could maybe connect you better with your parents?
Debbie Gayle I think, looking back on it, I, like most little girls, I was desperate for my father's attention, which I didn't really get, because he wasn't there very much. He was busy building his business. And he was this larger than life character and he would burst him for the door and give me a big kiss. And when he made money, then he’d usually give me some money and say, “Buy yourself a treat.” You know? So, I was always trying to get that attention. And I didn't get it.
That’s not because he was completely selfish. He... As I said, he lived his life the way he was able to live his life. And he did love me, but he just wasn't able to give me what I needed. And I honestly felt, when I had those magic words said to me, “Oh, you have a talent,” subconsciously, I thought, Oh, gosh. Daddy will be so proud of me. He will really notice me now. Um, but, of course, he didn't. He wasn't the slightest a bit interested in ballet. He didn't have a creative streak in him at all.
Jake Warren She was desperate to prove that she was good enough to make it to the top. And there was only one way to do that, making it to the Royal Ballet Academy.
Debbie Gayle That's when I had the first major disappointment of my life. I took the exam for the Royal Ballet school. And as far as I was concerned then,
I'd been told I was talented, I believed it, and I was desperate to join the great Royal Ballet school and, ultimately, join the company. And I took the audition. I think I just sort of assumed that I would get in. And I remember opening the letter at home and I think that was the biggest shock and disappointment I'd ever had.
Jake Warren She didn't get in.
Debbie Gayle And I can remember it now. It was almost physical. Like, I felt
I’d been punched in the stomach.
I think the people who were doing the additions, they probably saw our physical ability. But one of the most important things you need for classical ballet training is discipline. And I think they saw in me a lack of discipline. I mean, I did have some talent, obviously. But I did lack a discipline. I always had this slightly wildness to me. I can't – I can't really articulate it. But I was rejected. And it was a catastrophic thing for me at that time, because I did not know what else to do. I hadn't paid attention in my educational work. Not that they’ve stuck. It was very high in the stage school. But I just simply didn't bother.
Jake Warren Ballet was everything to her. Without it, she'd be completely lost. So, she didn't have many other options left, but to keep trying.
Debbie Gayle I just didn't know what to do. So, I drifted, really, into... There was a place called The Dance Centre in Covent Garden, where some very well-known and respected teachers gave open classes. And I started going there. And there was a teacher who, actually... Her name is Anna Northcote.
Jake Warren Anna Northcote was born in 1907 in Southbourne. As a young woman, she joined a Russian ballet company started by Sergei Diaghilev. The Diaghilev Ballet was the most famous dance troupe in Europe in the early twentieth century. It was called Ballet Russes, and they toured all around the world for more than two decades. Their blend of dance, opera, and drama made ballet mainstream again, and it launched Russia as the world ballet superpower.
So, Anna Northcote was an English dancer who danced with this company under a Russian pseudonym, Anna Severskaya. And after her career ended, she became one of the most respected ballet teachers in England. She started teaching at The Dance Centre in Covent Garden, which opened in 1964. And it was seven years later, in 1971, that my mum came to this school and studied ballet under one of Britain's best dancers.
Debbie Gayle And she saw in me some talent. And I think I then started to obsess, because everybody knew that Russians produced the greatest dancers. And I supposed I needed to focus. I was quite lonely. My father had actually left the marital home by then. My parents had began the quite hideous divorce procedure. And my brother was at boarding school and then he went off to college. So, I was in this house on my own. Quite a lonely, scared little girl, really. And I thought, Well, the answer to all my problems will be to go to Russia. I'll go to the finest school in the world, and they will make me a spectacular ballerina.
And all of a sudden, it’s so incredibly laughable now. And simplistic and unbelievable. And it actually, even then, was unbelievable. But that was the level of my arrogance. That I just... I remember saying to people, a few people, “I – I want to go and train at the Kirov.” And they just looked at me like I was completely insane. But I was always tenacious. I always had, as I said, that sort of wild side to me. And I just... I don’t know. Maybe you’d call utter stupidity. And I just became utterly obsessed and consumed by this idea.
Jake Warren It was an alternate reality in which she'd lead a dazzling life of ballet that would bring her the attention and validation that she so missed. So, she sets her sights on her highest goal. She wanted to dance in Russia, the greatest ballet school in world.
Debbie Gayle I didn't know how it was gonna do it. But, uh, when I confessed this to Anna Northcote, she was the first person. She said, “Do you know what I think? That... That's possible, Debbie.”
Jake Warren As soon as Anna said those words, it started feeling real.
In 1974, at the height of the Cold War, the wheels of diplomacy began turning. And my mum was put on course towards meeting a woman called Natasha, who would occupy her thoughts for the next fifty years.
Debbie Gayle I always worried whether she was all right. And I sort of promised myself that I would somehow make sure that she is okay. If she needed anything, if she needed help, that I would be there for her. But I didn't know how to do it.
Jake Warren Learning all of this about my mum's past made me realise that there was so much I never understood about her. She'd kept all this inside for decades. And I think that's because this story is about more than just Natasha. I think what happened with her in 1974 was a sort of breaking point. And so, finding Natasha might help me understand my mum a little better. That's why this is so important to me.
But in all honesty, I had no clue where to begin with a search like this. I knew I needed expert help. So, I asked an investigation specialist, who I trusted, a simple question: How do I find a ghost from fifty years ago and on the other side of the world, whose traces may have been lost in the years since the fall of the Iron Curtain?
Their answer was Olga Kuzmenkova, a Russian specialist investigator and people finder. She sounded like exactly the sort of rugged PI and grizzled expert I needed to move beyond my failing Google searches. But, actually...
Olga Kuzmenkova Oh, hi.
Jake Warren She was a lot less intimidating than I expected.
Olga Kuzmenkova What's up?
Jake Warren Hey, Olga. This is Jake Warren.
Olga Kuzmenkova Nice to meet you.
Jake Warren You, too. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.
Olga Kuzmenkova Uh, no worries.
Jake Warren So, like I mentioned in my e-mail, there's someone I need help finding. And I was told you – you may...
Jake Warren Hear about Olga's search for Natasha and my mum's journey to Russia in the next episode of Finding Natasha. You can listen to it right now in this very feed.
Olga Kuzmenkova Okay.
Jake Warren So, my mum...
Jake Warren Finding Natasha is a Message Heard production. It’s hosted by me, Jake Warren, and produced by Sandra Ferrari and Jake Otajovič. Edited by Jake Otajovič and executive produced by Sandra Ferrari. The theme music is by Matt Huxley.
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