He was educated at Trinity Academy, a comprehensive secondary school under the control of the Edinburgh City Council, where he took Highers, specializing in languages: French, German, and Latin.
Although Rambert claimed to have been initially unimpressed with the abilities of the pale, sandy-haired Scotsman, when she found herself in need of a tall male dancer a few weeks later, she sent for him and asked him to join her company.
[4] Faced with a choice between his secure job in the Foreign Office and the uncertain possibility of becoming a professional ballet dancer, Bennett took a risk and accepted Rambert's offer.
For the next five years, until 1957, Bennett danced with Rambert's company, appearing in both classic and modern works and creating a variety of roles for such inventive choreographers as John Cranko and Robert Joffrey.
In 1964, he returned to Ballet Rambert for one final year, during which he danced the technically difficult role of James in August Bournonville's La Sylphide.
Besides his work as ballet master, he made his last appearances on stage in 1965 as Florimund in Aurora's Wedding, as the Rejected Lover in Audrey King's La Fenêtre, and as Prince Marzipan in Walter Gore's production of Casse Noisette (The Nutcracker).
[9] Among his effects were draft manuscripts for two books: one a biography of Marie Rambert, with whom he felt a special affinity, and the other a monograph on Bournonville's La Sylphide.
He had for many years been interested in the background of this romantic tale of a Scottish farmer, James Ruben, who abandons his rural sweetheart to pursue an illusion of beauty in the form of a woodland spirit.