For 12 months, the woman still known as Britain's ballerina hasn't done the very thing with which she is synonymous: Darcey Bussell hasn't danced. That was the plan, of course, when she announced her departure from the Royal Ballet two years ago. But Bussell never quite managed to quit. Her long goodbye to the dance scene in 2007 took in several nights of Ashton, Forsythe and Wheeldon at Sadler's Wells and a final farewell to Covent Garden with her mentor Kenneth MacMillan's Song of the Earth. Then, within months, Bussell was back in the spotlight for a razzle-dazzle double act, Viva la Diva, with Welsh opera bombshell Katherine Jenkins.

So what made Bussell finally put her feet up? Speaking late at night from her new home in Sydney, with her daughters Phoebe and Zoe safely tucked up, she explains her dance-free year. "I'm still a dancer, and I suppose I'll never escape that," she says. "When I hear music I want to move. But I purposefully said that to clear my mind – and not have this chip on my shoulder that I stopped – I would not go into the studio or do any dance for a year." With those 12 months up, how does she feel? "I'm dying to take up salsa or flamenco," she laughs, adding that it would not be for the stage. "I'm all refreshed so I haven't got this thing about 'my profession'." She sounds a little relieved. "Because that's the only thing I've known. All of my confidence has come from my work. I still talk about Darcey Bussell as this other person – not me."

This "other" Darcey Bussell diligently spent her teenage years at the barre, becoming the Royal Ballet's youngest principal to date by the age of 20. She embodied the notion of ballerina-as-fairy-princess. Popping up as the game-for-a-laugh guest star on The Vicar of Dibley and slinking around the stage in Viva la Diva only helped to cement her status as a household name. Bussell still raves about the sheer enjoyment of the jukebox show with Jenkins: "It was the best thing I could have done, because it took out the shock of leaving the opera house and coming away from classical ballet – something that had been my passion and addiction for most of my life. Suddenly I was testing myself again."

Criss-crossing the country on a tour that took in venues as cavernous as London's O2 arena was also an opportunity to liberate dance from its stuffy, po-faced reputation, she says. "So many people said, 'Oh, we never came and saw you at the Royal Ballet and we so wanted to.' The idea of going into the opera house was too daunting for so many. I was really shocked."

The show found Bussell and Jenkins paying tribute to Cyd Charisse, Judy Garland and – most strikingly – Moira Shearer, star of The Red Shoes (1948), Powell and Pressburger's film about the rise and tragic fall of a ballerina in love with a composer yet under the thumb of a dance impresario. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's one of Bussell's favourite films; she remembers seeing it around the age of eight. "They created a total magic and a kind of mystery behind it which was incredibly special. Because it was Technicolor it was just so vibrant. I think they chose Moira Shearer not just for her brilliant dancing, but for her red hair. That must have been the first footage of ballet that I saw. It's a hard thing to capture that magic."

Bussell, who turned 40 earlier this month, has recently been busying herself with another pair of magic red shoes – those worn by Delphie and Rosa, the young heroes of a series of children's books she has developed for HarperCollins. (Bussell worked on the concept; the books were penned by a children's writer.) These particular scarlet slippers deliver their owners to faraway adventures that incorporate cameos from Cinderella, the Firebird and other staples of the Royal Ballet repertoire, including characters Bussell herself perfected at Covent Garden. Six of the books were published in October last year and have sold a quarter of a million copies; another half-dozen titles came out last month.

"The idea came from my daughters," she explains. "It was how they created the magic of the theatre in their minds. They believe that anything can happen on that stage."

For Bussell herself, it wasn't the magic that first attracted her to dance, but the discipline. "It was the steps. Perfecting the moves. And then, of course, you fall in love with the atmosphere that the theatre creates – the lighting and the orchestra and everything." It was her mum who first introduced her to dance, but she was reluctant to let Darcey study at the Royal Ballet school. "I forced my mother to get me an audition. She said: 'This is not for you, you won't enjoy it.' I was desperate to prove her wrong. My first year was very hard. You take a lot of criticism. It's always never good enough, so it's slightly demoralising ... I did a lot of crying. I'd missed two years, so I was very behind. I hadn't done ballet every day, I'd done it twice a week. They had been doing it every day for the last two years – six days a week, virtually. My first week there, it suddenly dawned on me how far behind I was, how terrified I was. I thought I'd made the biggest mistake." This month, the Royal Ballet school honoured her perseverance by naming a studio for Bussell at its redeveloped White Lodge site.

Bussell was 14 when she did her first student show, Sleeping Beauty, at the Royal Opera House. "I don't think I'll ever forget the adrenaline rush. Just having a dressing room was overwhelming." By the time she left, 24 years later, Bussell says the Royal Ballet was part of her identity. "Everything I worked on and created was inside that company. One of the stage crew said to me, 'Oh Darce, you can't leave, you're part of the brickwork.'" So when she finally cleared out her dressing room, was she tempted to carve her initials into the wall? "Oh no," she chuckles. "I hope I don't have to do that."

Bussell's Magic Ballerina books do a fine job of conjuring up the sparkle and romance of dancing, but her tone is serious – even solemn – when talking about how the art form can boost self-confidence. "If you ever see any child walk into a studio, they just want to fill that space straight away. Even the shyest child will get up there and do something.

"Children don't always have the words to say what they feel, but when they get to move, and express themselves that way, it lets down a lot of barriers." Britain's ballerina, who has spoken before about being bullied at school, pauses for thought: "Well, it helped me no end."