Few now know the name and even fewer are familiar with its reputation, but the Bal Tabarin was once a music cabaret in Paris as famous as the Moulin Rouge.

It opened its doors in 1904, and in 1928, Pierre Sandrini, the son of the prima ballerina Emma Sandrini, took over the reins and turned the theatre into the talk of the town.

Amongst Sandrini’s ensemble of dancers was Florence Waren.

Born in South Africa in 1917 as Sadie Rigal, Florence was Jewish.

During the occupation of Paris, she hid in plain sight and danced in front of the Nazis. Florence also continually risked her life to hide fellow Jews in her home and worked for the French Resistance.

Eighty years after the end of the Second World War the Bal Tabarin has been reduced to rubble and Florence is dead and largely forgotten.

Yet some things deserve to be remembered.

In her new novel, ‘The Paris Dancer,’ Abergavenny-born author Nicola Rayner resurrects and breathes new life into the life and times of the Bal Tabarin and Florence for a new generation of readers.

“It was my editor who first drew my attention to the Bal Tabarin and Florence for the first time,” explained Nicola, who added, “I was immediately intrigued!”

The author who made her debut in 2019 with ‘The Girl Before You,’ told the Chronicle, “Florence arrived in Paris in 1938 with the ambition to join one of the Ballet Russe companies. Yet like every aspiring and young dancer she needed to pay the rent and put food on the table, so she auditioned for the Bal Tabarin."

Nicola added, “Back then the Bal Tabarin wasn’t just any music hall, it was quite a special place. As the son of a ballerina and a dancer himself, Sandrini was an important figure. He helped revolutionise the can-can and brought in classical dancers to the Bal Tabarin to help enhance its reputation.”

With a keen eye for talent when he saw it, Sandrini immediately gave Florence a role in the ensemble.

However, with war in Europe on the horizon and the looming threat to life and liberty for anyone with Jewish blood, Sandrini advised his young dancer to audition for Colonel Wassily de Basil’s company in London.

“Sandrini was fiercely protective of his Jewish employees,” explained Nicola. “And he was determined to keep Florence safe from the advance of Nazi forces.

“She was eventually offered a place in De Basil’s Ballet Russe, and the plan was for her to be picked up by the company in the winter of 1939, but when war broke out that September, Florence, like so many other Jewish people, was suddenly stranded in a country that had become highly dangerous for her.”

Utilising the resilience and determination that had helped shape her as a dancer, Florence never registered as Jewish and continued to perform at the Bal Tabarin in front of the watching Nazis. She even toured prisoner-of-war camps on German soil with a fellow dancer.

Meanwhile, behind the backs of the invading army, she worked for the French Resistance and helped protect Jewish families from the horror of the death camps.

Although the ‘Paris Dancer’ is based in part on Florence, Nicola is keen to stress it is still a work of fiction.

In the book, Florence becomes a character named Annie, and the wartime narrative co-exists with the modern-day story of Miriam, a young writer who while sorting through the papers of her great-aunt, Esther, in New York, finds a secret memoir of Esther’s childhood in occupied Paris and her memories of a dancer friend from the Bal Tabarin.

It’s through these memoirs we discover a tale of friendship, grief, and courage that Esther felt unable to share with anyone during her lifetime, which in turn helps Mimi to find the strength to deal with a tragic incident from the past that threatens to overwhelm her future.

It’s hard for the modern mind to imagine, but there was a time when the hollow thud of the jackboot on the stair, the explosion of doors being booted open, the barking dogs straining at the leash, the flashlight in the face, the guttural accent barking order, the pointed guns, the hostile faces, the wrenching of mother from child, of husband from wife, and the final, despairing and humiliating train journey to camps where the world and everything you thought you knew would come to a brutal and senseless end, had yet to happen.

As such, novels set just before the outbreak of the Second World War always carry an extra edge of tension and weight of sadness. The reader knows the inevitable storm that is looming. One which will change the life of each character in ways they cannot possibly conceive.

Rayner uses the knowledge of hindsight to striking effect in ‘The Paris Dancer,’ a book that finds humanity in the darkest hour of history by reminding us that a selfless act and kind gesture can also change the world.

The Second World War was a time of great suffering and evil that sharply defined all that was hateful and destructive in the human heart. Yet it was also a period that highlighted the essential goodness, strength, and resolve of the human spirit to never let the darkness snuff out the light.

The conflict that continues to cast a long shadow over the modern world has spawned endless books, films, plays, and poems. Some inspiring, engaging, and moving, some less so.

‘The Paris Dancer’ definitely falls into the former category.

However, Nicola, who made her name writing thrillers, was a bit unsure about her first foray into historical fiction.

She told the Chronicle, “When I was contemplating writing a book set in that period I felt more than a little intimidated by the ghosts of other books from that time. I wanted to offer something different. I feel historical stories about women, particularly during World War Two, often get lost. So that was one motivation for writing the book. I then realised the way I could really make it my own and bring something new to the table was my love and knowledge of dance.”

By using dance as the magic thread that connects the characters in the book, ‘The Paris Dancer’ is not just a novel based on the war-time heroics of Florence Waren. It is also about Esther who falls in love with the tenacious nature of a dancer - their grace of movement and fortitude of spirit.

In the present day, it is also about Mimi, who through learning to dance learns something about the nature of loss, love, and redemption. Most of all it’s a novel that reminds us how dancing can be a metaphor for the human condition.

As the character of Miriam muses towards the end of the book when watching New Yorkers go about the daily grind, “How do they cope with the pain of being alive Or is it like dancing - is it just a matter of hiding the effort of it?”

As someone who has studied, interviewed, and written about dancers for two decades, Nicola’s passion for dancing leaps and pirouettes of the pages of the book.

The former assistant editor of Dancing Times and editor of Dance Today explained, “I have nothing but admiration for dancers, and the commitment and dedication they possess. The opportunity to write a novel about a dancer was a real pleasure for me. Not only because dancing has been part of my life for a long time, but because a lot of accounts of female dancers have been written by men and I felt this was a way to remove the male gaze and celebrate how strong, serious, and accomplished dancers are, particularly those involved in cabaret and the can-can. A dance which has often been dismissed in quite a sexist manner.”

As children, we all love to dance and it’s something we do quite instinctively, but as we become adults it’s often something we feel self-conscious and awkward about. In ‘The Paris Dancer’ Mimi’s journey of learning to dance reflects her emotional journey of self-healing.

Nicola explained, “I’ve been immersed in dance for a long time, and I’m a keen social dancer. It’s not only great for you physically but it’s really good for your mental health. I’ve always been impressed by the show must go on mentality that professional dancers possess. You have to be quite a tough and resilient person to put your problems to one side and go out under the spotlight and give it your all, and I think the character of Annie embodies that spirit.”

It is through Esther’s secret memoirs that Miriam learns about how her great aunt’s friendship with Annie shaped her life.

Typical of many of her generation, Esther kept the experiences and stories that had such a profound effect on her from her nearest and dearest and they only came to light in the wake of her death.

“You can call it stiff-upper-lip or maybe just old-fashioned reserve but that generation certainly didn’t over-share,” said Nicola.

“In many ways that’s probably where there’s still so much interest in that period because everyone has or had a family member or members that lived through it but kept their experiences to themselves.”

Those who have gone before and the lives they have led are never far from Nicola’s mind and in a piece she wrote for the 75th anniversary of VE Day, Nicola explained, “I keep this photograph of my grandparents on their wedding day in 1948 on my writing desk, so it's a constant presence, but they are very much on my mind today.

“Grandpa was a doctor and Grandma was a nurse – they both trained during the war, with Grandpa’s studies fast-tracked; he was 15 when the war began and was also in the Home Guard. They met just after the war on HM Troopship Dilwara – Grandpa as the ship’s medical officer and Grandma the nursing sister.

“As well as saving lives, like everyone of that generation, they lost many friends and relatives. For my siblings and me, Grandpa and Grandma played a huge part in our lives, especially after our father died, running us to school or letting us stay with them to study. It’s no exaggeration to say I think of my grandfather, a fellow book lover, every day and I so wish he had lived to see me become a published author.

“The other photographs are of my great-uncle Denis and my great-aunt Daphne, Grandma’s siblings. Denis was awarded a Distinguished Service Order for his immense courage at the Battle of Monte Cassino in 1944, where he was injured three times. He was also one of the most gentle and engaging people you could hope to meet and it is a source of great sadness that, dying at 99, he didn’t quite make it to receive his telegram from the Queen.

“As for Daph, she was a complete riot – vivacious, hilarious, warm, loving, and brave. She was in the crowd outside Buckingham Palace exactly 75 years ago (on the celebration of VE Day). Someone touched her up, she told us, but she “thumped him where it hurts” – I am really hoping to spot that in the footage. She was the youngest of them and the last to leave us at the end of last year. I’m not sure how they would feel about being remembered on social media – they were all as modest as they were brave, self-effacing as they were selfless. But I wanted them to know, wherever they are, that we will never forget them.”

Eighty years after the Second World War ended books like ‘The Paris Dancer’ remind us with its cinematic narrative split between 1939 and 2012 that the passing of time is the strangest of things.

Think about it too hard and Einstein’s quote about the distinction between past, present, and future being only a stubbornly persistent illusion makes perfect sense.

We’re usually so caught up in living our lives that we don’t give too much thought to how the present becomes the future and the present becomes the past with every heartbeat. In the chaos, things get lost. Things get forgotten. But there are some things we should always remember.

‘The Paris Dancer’ by Nicola Rayner is published by Head of Zeus on February 13.

On March 4 Nicola Rayner will be at Crichowell’s Book-ish in conversation with bestselling author S.E. Lynes to celebrate the launch of ‘The Paris Dancer.’ Tickets are available from www.book-ish.co.uk