Nine years after taking up his first dance lessons, John Lowe made his debut as a ballet dancer at the age of 88.

Lowe, who hails from Witchford, said he took up his dancing at the age of 79 when his daughter Alison become a professional dancer.

"It's a wonderful thing to do and I can't understand why more men don't do it," said Lowe, a retired teacher.

And finally, last Sunday, Lowe appeared in the Lantern Dance Theatre Company's performance of Prokofiev's The Stone Flower at The Maltings in Ely.

"I went to a dance school in the high street in Ely and asked if I could do tap and ballet and they said 'well of course you can' and I've been doing it ever since," said Lowe.

"I've got a rope at home that I use to pull my leg up higher. I'm lucky that I don't have any problem with the routines but that's because I exercise.

"There's nothing effeminate about it - you have to be incredibly fit to dance. I see these people crawling around, hunched over smoking a cigarette - they should be doing ballet."