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A guest on The Repair Shop expressed being "breathless" after witnessing her shoes being restored on the television programme

Julie Felix, the first professional black ballerina in Britain, is among the most recent participants on the current series of the beloved reality show, hoping that the team could mend the ballet shoes she donned during her inaugural professional solo performance four decades ago.

The London-born dancer, who is of Caribbean descent, also reflected on her mother as her greatest advocate as she recalled the challenges she faced throughout her career while on the BBC programme.

Felix shared how she was compelled to journey to the US in the 1970s after a ballet company in London excluded her due to her skin colour, informing her "we can't have a brown ballet dancer in the line-up of the swans,' reports the Manchester Evening News.

While conversing with the show's specialists, Lucia Scalisi and Dean Westmoreland, she detailed how she was offered a contract with the all-black ballet company Dance Theatre Of Harlem, based in New York.

Felix stated that seven years later her ballet company performed at the Royal Opera House in London where she was offered her first solo role, and she graced the stage in her "tan-coloured" pointe shoes - which were dyed to match her skin tone.

She said: "These were the shoes that I wore when mum and dad came to see me perform on the stage of the Royal Opera House. And I said, 'mum, you were right. I've made it, and I'm here'. Right here on this table, these symbolise all the work, effort, love and devotion from my mother."

Reflecting on the moment she saw her restored ballet shoes, Felix said: "I was winded, almost. I felt like somebody had just kicked me in the stomach. I was breathless for a few seconds. It was genuine tears, it really was. Even now when I'm talking about it, I'm getting a lump in my throat, any time I talk about my mum. I knew that these would be absolutely what she had wanted.

"She asked me, 'Julie, when you're finished with these shoes, please can you get them fixed in such a way that I can put them on a display somewhere in the house as memory of my coming to see you perform at the Royal Opera House'. That really choked me up because I just put my heart on my chest the way I did when I stood on the stage when she was alive. I looked up at the seats in the Gods, and I just said, 'mum, I'm here, I've done it' and it took me back."

She revealed the shoes are now displayed in her home, saying: "I see them every day, when I'm home all the time, and it doesn't take much for my eye to catch them. And I just think, 'mum, look at these'.

"That's what she wanted, and she wanted them in her house so she could see them every day. So, thank you The Repair Shop." Felix was awarded an MBE in 2024 for her contributions to dance education. She has served as a dancer, teacher, coach, author and has devoted her extensive career to assisting black individuals in pursuing careers in the arts.

The Repair Shop airs every Wednesday on BBC One at 8pm