The sunshine of this beautiful autumn day helped. The great west door of the Abbey remained open throughout the hour-long ceremony, lending dazzling perspective to the nave, which, for this occasion was split by two banks of facing pews. The procession of the starry and the not-so-starry guests filed between the pews towards the choir and out of our view, leading to whispers of 'Isn't that Sibley?' Or 'I'm sure that's Lynn Seymour..'. They were all there, of course, every name you could think of in the ballet hierarchy.

Then came the dignitaries - chief among them the wheelchair-bound HRH Princess Margaret accompanied by her daughter Lady Sarah Chatto. I thought it was incredibly brave of the Princess to put in this appearance; she is obviously a sick woman, her face almost obscured by enormous dark glasses. Finally came the clergy, choristers and the Dean of Westminster

As the congregation was assembling the Royal Ballet Symfonia, conducted by Barry Wordsworth, played pieces from de Valois' ballets, as well as from 'Nutcracker' and 'Les Biches' (presumably the latter two were particular favourites of hers).

I sat with Bruce and Brendan, following the proceedings from the Order of Service booklet, (which Bruce has scanned in). Its first page carries a rare photograph of de Valois smiling the most dazzling of smiles (she seems to have considered it a point of honour to look as stern as possible in photographs, possibly to reinforce her fearsome reputation), but this photograph shows that she was actually rather a beautiful woman.

Anthony Dowell read from the First Letter of St. Peter, and did it beautifully. Alexander Stannus, her great-nephew, read a piece of her poetry 'Dancers in Action', and her great-niece, Louise Verity recounted some family recollections which, sadly, were all but inaudible in the echoing vastness of the nave. Ironically, she was the only one we could actually see speaking; the other speakers were all invisible from where we were sitting.

The core of the service was Sir Peter Wright's address, which was profoundly touching. He said, among other things, that she was one of the most brilliant women of the twentieth century and I don't suppose there was a single one of us present who did not agree. He didn't attempt to gloss over her faults - he said she could be contradictory, petty and even ruthless, but his affection and respect shone through. I loved one particular anecdote. He recalled that she came back to the stage at the age of 52 after a thirteen-year gap to dance the maid in Ashton's 'A Wedding Bouquet'. When the curtain went up and the audience recognised de Valois, they went wild and continued going wild for several seconds. De Valois silenced them completely and instantaneously with one commanding gesture of her arm. 'From being complete pandemonium, the place suddenly went so quiet that you could have heard a pin drop', Sir Peter said. (This story probably says all one needs to say about de Valois' authority). He covered her whole career in his wide-ranging address, listing her achievements - the establishment of three major companies (the Royal Ballet, the Royal Birmingham Ballet and the National Ballet of Turkey) as well as the Royal Ballet School before concluding his address by saying simply 'She was my boss until her dying day'.

I hope that the full transcript of Sir Peter's address will be published somewhere shortly, because he said a great deal more that I have been able to recollect here (maybe others present will be able to recollect more?).

As the service ended, the great and the good filed past us once again and I tried to memorise all the names and faces. Among the senior presences that I recognised were Pamel May, Beryl Gray, Alicia Markove and Alexander Grant, and amongst the somewhat younger Merel Park, Antoinette Sibley, Lynn Seymour, Lesley Collier, Donald MacLeary, Monica Mason and Anthony Dowell (obviously) together with Ross Stretton (I probably just imagined the shifty look on the latter's face..). Bright-eyed attentive RB students, rows of them, considerably lowered the average age of the congregation. There were countless others. Sir Jeremy Isaacs was there, and a busload (yes, a busload) of BRB dancers, including principals, accompanied by David Bintley and wife.

As we filed out of the Abbey into the autumn sunshine, the orchestra played the Rose Adagio music from Sleeping Beauty, and never has it sounded so rich, so profound and so moving to me. I have tears in my eyes thinking about it now.

The liturgists who wrote yesterday’s service did so with imagination. The prayers were apt, as was the evocation of Martha Graham’s description of dance as “the hidden language of the soul”. Ninette de Valois was a woman of faith – religious and artistic. The service evoked both.

When Peter Wright spoke, what shone through was his portrait of Madam as a great creative leader and encourager of others’ gifts. He talked of her pride in her choreographers, notably Kenneth MacMillan and John Cranko, and her devastation at their early deaths. “She loved them both so much”, he said. She felt similarly about Fonteyn and Nureyev. Wright’s words were a reminder to the congregation that creativity must be loved, encouraged, supported. Ninette de Valois did all that, and, in doing so, enriched so many lives.

Peter Wright spoke too of her time in Dublin at the Abbey Theatre and her collaboration with WB Yeats on his Plays for Dancers. It was a subtle reminder to us of Madam’s Anglo-Irish origins. The words on her coat of arms (reproduced on the order of service) read “Et Vi et Virtute”. A rough translation might be “by dint of excellence, and – if necessary – bloody-mindedness” That was the woman through and through.

On the frontispiece of her autobiography, she quotes Yeats' lines:

"I am of Ireland,
And the Holy Land of Ireland,
"And time runs on", cried she.
"Come out of charity,
"Come dance with me in Ireland"

In the land of her birth we would say of her “Ni bheidh a leithéid ann arís”, in translation, “we will not see her like again”. We are lucky to have had her.

Bruce,Brendan and Ann - thank you so much for all these wonderful details. It almost made up for missing the service. What an amazing woman she was. I'm glad some of her poems were included. It has always impressed me enormously that she was able to express herself so well in words, as well as in various aspects of ballet.

Any more impressions would be very welcome!

The inaudibility of Verity Lambert was because she was not using the microphone properly, not because of the acoustic.

My celeb spottings (aplogies for any duplication)included Monica Mason, Alexander Grant, Marguerite Porter, Desmond Kelly, Jay Jolley, Beryl Grey (wonderful hat and lapels), John Tooley (not looking well), Maina Gielgud, Derek Deane, Lord and Lady Sainsbury, Deborah MacMillan, Michael Berkeley, Lesley Collier, Merle Park, Alicia Markova etc etc! Plus the former stage door keeper at the ROH, with beard and glasses, who is now a marshal at the Abbey.

Lynn Seymour's hat was an event in itself - a black straw exaggerated trilby.

Somewhat underwhelmed by the service itself compared to MacMillan's and others I have attended there. Not convinced by the poetry - too much of that, not enough music incorporated into the service itself. To pick up on the earlier comment, the rag mazurka from Biches was created/ rehearsed on de Valois, so presumably hence its choice.

Thought the Checkmate pieces sounded good there, excellent singing from the boys in the choir, the men did not sound as though they had rehearsed. What feeble hymn singing from the congregation - what a secular nation we have become!

What a shame - after all, the hymns selected weren't particularly taxing or unknown.