Partially-sighted Sue Ridge told today how she joined the glamorous dancers at the famous Folies Bergre - and hid her deteriorating vision from bosses.

As a child, Mrs Ridge was nicknamed Bloodhound because she had to peer so closely at her schoolbooks that her classmates thought she was reading by smell.

Little did they know the girl with the old-fashioned milk-bottle glasses would become a dancer at the world-famous Paris nightclub.

Mrs Ridge, who still lives in her childhood home in Coldean, Brighton, said: "In the Fifties, they didn't do a lot for partially-sighted children."

The more Sue struggled, the more she hated school and dreamed of becoming a dancer.

In 1965, aged 15, she spent two years touring Britain in shows and pantomimes, treading the boards with famous names of the Sixties including Jimmy Jewel and the Beverley Sisters.

In one show she struck up a friendship with singer Dusty Springfield, who also had a sight problem.

She said: "She was very shy but whenever she turned up at a party we would sit together holding up fingers to see how many we could see."

At 18 Mrs Ridge moved to Paris. She spent four years travelling the world with various companies before returning to the French capital to join the Folies Bergre in 1972.

But how she managed to carry out complicated and athletic dance routines with her deteriorating eyesight remains a mystery.

She said: "I knew I couldn't see very well but I felt I could see enough. I think it was instinct because I had always been visually impaired and had grown up dancing."

Sue worked as a dancer for nearly 15 years, concealing her sight problem with a variety of tricks.

She said: "In rehearsals, I always made sure I was in the front row so I could see the directions given to us and I called everyone 'Darling' to avoid having to work out who they were.

"I was lucky enough to work with very supportive people who would lead me off the stage when the lights went down but I had more and more accidents as time went on."

During a show in Sweden she could not find her way off stage when the lights went down and fell into the audience.

In Amsterdam, she fell off another stage and landed on a table where comic actor Bob Hope was sitting, sipping champagne.

When she was 27, Mrs Ridge was hit by a car and badly hurt. She decided it was time to stop. She returned to Brighton in 1980 and made an appointment with an eye specialist and was registered blind.

These days she and husband Jonathan spend their time organising social activities for blind and partially-sighted people.

She said: "I don't regret my career but I don't regret ending it either. I have lots of great memories to look back on."