AN ANDOVER schoolboy has won a place on a prestigious ballet training programme.

Ruben Mariner, of Andover, has been offered a place in The Royal Ballet School’s associate programme.

It follows the Portway Junior School pupil performing for Princess Eugenie at a Children in Crisis charity event at Kensington Palace at the beginning of the month.

Parents Natalia and Chris Mariner said: “Ruben’s favourite moment of the day was being photographed with the princess by hundreds of photographers, or as he called them the paparazzi.”

The nine-year-old danced for his fellow pupils during a school assembly on Friday, to share his experience of the royal meeting.

His ambition is to one day have a major role in either his favourite ballet Swan Lake, which he went to see and chatted with the cast earlier this year, or a similar production.