Running more than half a dozen dance schools with 700 pupils would be challenge enough for anyone, let alone someone who has lived through two World Wars.

But then, as her famous family name might suggest, Angela Redgrave of the Bristol School of Dancing is no ordinary person.

Aged 91 and after three hip operations she is still going strong, teaching young girls to perfect their plies four days a week.

Of course, Angela Redgrave is part of a much larger artistic institution, the Redgrave family.

Her cousin was the late Sir Michael Redgrave, who was born in Bristol and after whom Clifton's Redgrave Theatre is named.

Continuing the dynasty, his three children were all actors – Vanessa, Lynn and Corin.

Oscar-winning Vanessa Redgrave, Mrs Redgraves' second cousin, would go on to have acting children of her own, including Joely and Natasha Richardson.

Mrs Redgrave had four children, including John Redgrave, who runs the Bristol School of Performing Arts.

Her daughter Felicity was a dancer and now helps run the administrative side of the school, while her eldest son David is in the Royal Navy.

She also had a second daughter Arabella, who had Down's Syndrome, and sadly passed away two years ago.

Mrs Redgrave said: "She danced too, and worshipped this place.

"I've had a couple of Down's Syndrome children here since then and they are wonderful, they love it when you show them how it's done."

Mrs Redgrave also has three granddaughters, one grandson and four great-grandchildren, though unusually none has followed in the family's artistic footsteps.

She said: "I'm proud to be part of this family. My father, who was a great deal older than my mother, lived until he was 98. I saw Vanessa in Bath at Christmas, her one-woman show was very good. Now she's gone back to the States to see her sister."

Mrs Redgrave began teaching at just 15, giving her more than 70 years of experience.

This was recognised in 2005, when she received a lifetime achievement award from the Royal Academy of Dance for her contribution to the art form. She said: "I trained in London and worked there for many years in pantos and cabaret shows. During the war we were dancing in Dockland and the East End and we had some dreadful experiences, as you can imagine. I was performing on stage once when the bombs started falling."

She opened her first school in Harrow, North London, in 1952, but moved to the South West in the early 1960s.

Mrs Redgrave, who lives in Bridgwater, said: "My late husband relocated down here so I had to start again. I started a school in Nailsea in 1964, at that time we'd just bought a house.

"It was immediately successful and we had some very talented children, and two or three went to the West End.

"I heard this school in Bristol was closing because the principal was going abroad, so I took it over in 1970, and have been here ever since."

The main branch is in Lansdown Road, Clifton, and the building has quite a history if its own.

In the early 1920s it was acquired by the prima ballerina Phyllis Bedels, and when she founded her ballet school, it became known as The West of England Academy. A plaque bearing her name still hangs over the front door.

Many of Mrs Redgrave's own pupils have gone on to do great things, including James Gray, who has performed on Broadway, in the Mel Brooks' film-turned-stage musical The Producers.

Others have danced for the Royal Ballet, and seeing their success is one of the reasons Mrs Redgrave still teaches.

She said: "I like to see the progress. From two-and-a-half we struggle with them and then all of a sudden they flower out."

"They can be surprising, there can be a girl who doesn't seem special and then she will become the ballerina."

She added: "I'm more of a mentor now, I help young teachers arrange and run their classes.

"I can't see I'm going to stop unless something stops me, I enjoy it."

Watching her at work at the studio is an impressive sight, as she cuts a commanding figure yet creates a friendly atmosphere.

She spends much of the hour on her feet, despite the operations, gently correcting the girls' postures in various positions.

Mrs Redgrave is assisted by Lara Plateck, 22, a teacher who demonstrates some of the more athletic manoeuvres, and pianist Frances Bhoola, 65.

Both are clearly in awe of their colleague, as anyone would be.

Lara, one of the teachers Mrs Redgrave has mentored, said: "I've been teaching here for three years.

"I teach mainly modern dance and tap, I help her with her ballet classes."

Mrs Bhoola has been playing the same baby grand piano for 20 years, and has been coming to the school for nearly twice as long.

She said: "I've been here since my oldest daughter came when she was three, and now she's 42.

"Not having my grand daughter in the country, I like being in contact with young folk.

"I've also built up a working relationship with Mrs Redgrave and her family.

"She's a fascinating character, she's 92 this year. She's an institution really."

Despite all of her many achievements, Mrs Redgrave nearly didn't become a dancer at all.

She said: "I didn't want to be a dancer, I wanted to be a drama queen.

"I wrote my own plays from the age of six, I did produce them with the family reluctantly playing their parts.

"I would see a bump in a park and it would be stage.

"But in the early days there were not the chances to do that, no drama schools.

"Then a girl came to school, Molly Wood, she was a dancer and could do the splits, which fascinated me.

"I copied everything she did.

"I informed my father, a clergymen who knew nothing about this sort of thing, who found me a dance school.

"If I had never met her then who knows what might have happened."

The dancing school's main branch is in Clifton, but there are others in Southville, Cotham, Portishead, Nailsea, Backwell, Clevedon and a new branch is due to open in Redland on Friday, January 9.

It holds classes every night of the week for dancers aged between two-and-a-half and 24, and Mrs Redgrave herself teaches Monday to Wednesday and on Saturdays.