Best Foot Forward
ALSO BY SHIRLEY BALLAS
Behind the Sequins
Best Foot Forward
Life lessons from the world of dance
SHIRLEY BALLAS
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To everyone who has supported me in the eight years since I started on Strictly Come Dancing. Your positivity, messages and friendship have meant the absolute world.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Introduction … 1
Step One: Put Your Best Foot Forward 5
Step Two: Tell a Story … 37
Step Three: Polish Your Stage Presence 59
Step Four: Be Confident Out of Hold … 81
Step Five: Learn to Pivot … 107
Step Six: Master the Transitions … 131
Step Seven: Accept the Rise and Fall … 151
Step Eight: Gain Alignment … 177
Step Nine: Trust Your Partner … 197
Step Ten: Hold Your Frame … 213
Step Eleven: Dance Like Nobody’s Watching … 233
Step Twelve: Be the Choreographer … 251
Step Thirteen: Face the Music … 267
Step Fourteen: Keep Dancing 289 A Letter to My 17-Year-Old Self 303 A Final Word from My Mother, Audrey … 307 Acknowledgements … 309 Credits 311
Introduction
I always assumed that by the time I reached my sixties I’d have everything figured out. Thanks to a wealth of experience gathered from the decades of twists and turns, I’d be like a wise old owl with the meaning of life completely cracked. Hey, no laughing at the back.
But here I am, knocking on the door of 65 and only now realising that I’m never going to come close to having all the answers. Just when you think you’ve nailed the routine, along comes a giant glitter ball to knock you off your feet again.
What I do know is that each one of those setbacks has shaped me into the person I am today – every kick in the teeth has something to teach us if we’re willing to listen.
And that’s what this book is all about.
When I wrote my bestselling autobiography Behind the Sequins five years ago, telling my story in full for the first time, I felt that I’d finally found my voice. From the years growing up stony broke, to conquering the world of dance, from the divorces, heartbreaks, betrayals and grief all the way through to landing the job of a lifetime on Strictly Come Dancing, being able to write my truth and share some of the pain I’ve carried was incredibly liberating.
I know many of you will have read it and the outpouring of love and positive feedback from fans and followers – my team – was phenomenal.
Best Foot Forward is the companion to that memoir, an opportunity to look a little closer at the struggles, the triumphs and the drive which pushes me on every step of the way.
I want to draw on everything I’ve been through to show that hope can rise from despair, it’s never too late to make a change and that even when the music stops, you can find your sparkle again.
In many ways I feel very fortunate. I have friends and family who love me and the sort of career that dreams are made of. I could never have imagined where it would take me when I first set foot on a ballroom floor at the age of just seven.
But nothing was ever handed to me on a silver platter –everything I have and own, I’ve worked hard for, which is why I cherish it with all my being.
And despite all the many good things in my life, I’ve also suffered a hell of a lot of bad luck along the way and survived more than my fair share of heartache.
I lost my brother to suicide, a grief which is still raw more than 20 years later.
I’ve loved ferociously and given everything to those relationships, but have had my heart shattered and been left with nothing.
I’ve lived in luxury, but I’ve also been on the bones of my arse and had to start over again from scratch several times.
And throughout all of that, I like to think I’ve stayed true to who I am. My core values have remained steadfast; they are foundations which have kept me grounded, whatever storms I’ve had to weather.
The backbone to all of this has been the discipline instilled in me from childhood, nearly all of which I attribute to dance.
Right from the beginning, dance came first and I knew what it meant to be committed.
At home, I was given the gift of resilience by my formidable mother who worked multiple jobs while my brother and I managed the household, learning to cook a Sunday roast between us before the age of ten. That was our reality.
The discipline fed the resilience and the resilience fed the discipline. Each reinforced the other.
You’re going to get to know my mother, Audrey, very well throughout the course of this book. Along with my son, she is the most important relationship in my life – she is stoicism personified, my leading light and number-one confidante.
It’s for that reason that I’ve started each of my chapters – which I’m calling ‘steps’ – with a quote from her, a golden nugget of no-nonsense advice, every word of which has served me well over the years.
You’ll also see I’ve signed off each step with a bunch of Shirley’s Shimmers, a collection of final thoughts which I hope you’ll take heart from.
Over the next few hundred pages, I’m going to revisit some of the experiences you might remember from Behind the Sequins as well as opening up about many others I’ve not felt ready to share until now. And of course, there are five more years to catch up on since I wrote it and if you know anything about me by now it’s that I can pack an awful lot into a short space of time.
I’ve had a cancer scare, seen the stalker who terrorised me for six years brought to justice and I find myself single again, wondering if I’ll ever find lasting love. I’ve judged five more series of Strictly, fought my way through Bear Grylls’s jungle
and also become a grandmother to the most gorgeous baby boy, Banksi Wylde Ballas, who has given me a whole new perspective on the world.
Heartache, mental health, loneliness, menopause, bunions and plenty more besides – my hope is that by sharing the warts and all, you might at least find some reassurance that you’re not alone in navigating the footwork of life.
Perhaps together, we can make sense of the steps.
Maybe life is supposed to be one huge learning curve from the day we’re born until the day we bow out for good. Maybe we’re never meant to know it all.
Just before we begin, I’d like to take a moment to thank you all for being here. Not just for this book, but for everything, the whole shebang.
I really do have a wonderfully loyal community out there who support me through thick and thin. Having you here is like falling into a cloud; you’re always cushioning me and you constantly have my back on this wildest of rides which shows no signs of slowing down.
I’ve no intention of allowing it to. I will never stand still.
I want to keep learning, keep growing and keep dancing, right until the very end, until I click my clogs.
So, let me take you by the hand and lead you to the dance floor for the whirl and twirl of a lifetime.
Put Your Best Foot Forward
‘Just get to the front of the queue, Shirley.’
AUDREY
Life, much like dance, is all about movement. Every step you take can shape the direction in which you’re heading and putting your best foot forward means showing up with intention, playing to your strengths and having a willingness to work hard. Not to mention a point-blank refusal ever to throw the towel in.
Someone once said to me, ‘It doesn’t matter how we try to push you down, Shirley Ballas, you just keep on resurfacing.’ Now, you might think that was meant as an insult, and knowing who the remark came from, it probably was. At least in part.
But I have always taken it as the highest compliment because it gets right to the heart of who I am. No matter how many times life has tried to knock me down or throw me off course, I’ve always found a way to get up, dust myself off and come back again, even stronger than before.
It’s a never-say-die attitude that I get from my mother and I’ve needed every bit of it to survive nearly 60 years in a dance industry that is not for the faint-hearted.
It’s a tough, unforgiving, deeply flawed and dog-eat-dog world. It’s where my passion, my perseverance and purpose have been tested – and indeed proven – time and time again.
But despite all its imperfections, it is where I belong.
It’s what I know and what I am best at, and despite the often-relentless bullying, backstabbing and betrayals, my dedication to it has never wavered.
Even now, if I’m asked to do something for my industry, I always try my utmost to fulfil that request and give back. I love it with every fibre of my soul and I will die in my dance shoes.
I know many people spend a lifetime searching for their dream, but I was lucky enough to stumble across mine at the age of seven. My mother always encouraged me to give anything I fancied a go, which is why at various points in my early childhood she had me trying out tennis, chess, tap, ballet, swimming, volunteering for the Red Cross and singing in the choir.
I guess a scattergun approach to activities is one way of figuring out where your strengths lie – what sparks joy and what makes you tick.
My epiphany came on an otherwise ordinary evening at Brownies in my local church hall. We were learning how to perform CPR when the faint sound of music coming from one of the adjoining rooms caught my attention.
And in that moment, everything – the whole course of my life – changed forever.
I was immediately drawn to the sound and found myself walking towards it. It was almost hypnotic and I felt a rush of energy surge through my body as I moved closer.
I peered through the glass at the top of the door and saw people moving to music. There was, elegance, connection and magic … I was mesmerised.
It took my breath away.
A gentleman in the room spotted me watching and asked if he could help me.
‘What are they doing?’ I asked him.
He told me they were learning the Waltz. And, as luck would have it, they were starting children’s classes that very Saturday. That’s serendipity right there, isn’t it?
Just like that, I’d found my calling, a passion which has shaped my whole life and taken me on the most exhilarating of journeys, all the way to head judge on Strictly Come Dancing.
But before we get into all of that, I’d like to rewind a little and take you back to the very beginning, to give you the backdrop which puts into context everything that has unfolded in my life since.
I was born Shirley Annette Rich on 6 September 1960 in Highfield Hospital in Wallasey and spent the first couple of years of my life living in my great-grandfather’s house in New Brighton, a seaside resort and suburb of Wallasey in the Wirral, along with my maternal grandparents Frank and Daisy, my mother Audrey and older brother David.
My dad, George Andrew Rich (who was known as Andy) was largely absent, having left when I was two and David was three and a half – he and my mother had a volatile relationship with explosive arguments fuelled by his drinking.
While he would visit occasionally, he never gave us a red cent. I remember my mum taking him to court where he was ordered to pay a small amount to support us, but we didn’t ever receive it. Off he went and lived his life, marrying three
more times after my mother divorced him. Our father-daughter relationship was often so distant that it was easier to call him Andy than Dad or Daddy.
Although years later I was told by other people that he was proud of me, actions speak much louder than words as far as I’m concerned. It’s all well and good saying, ‘Oh, I love my daughter because she’s on the telly’ but that’s not what love is to me.
When people go out on a limb for you, that’s when you know you’ve got a good person in your corner. My father never did that.
Not that I’ve ever blamed him for anything that’s gone wrong in my life – I only ever take responsibility for that myself – but I still hold some anger that he didn’t have it in him to step up to the plate when we needed him.
I’m mad at him because of the way I know he treated my mother. I’m mad about the fact he never took responsibility and then told other people that we were the issue, not him. I’m mad that he never actually sat down and said, ‘You know what, Shirley, I wasn’t the world’s greatest dad, please let me try to make it up to you.’
My mother never married again and I think he put her through a lot more than perhaps she cares to share – although by the time she got her divorce, her heart hadn’t just healed, it was singing.
Not long after my father walked out on us, she was offered a council flat three miles along the coast on the Leasowe housing estate, a tight-knit community where it was common for generations of the same families to live on neighbouring streets.
We hardly had two pennies to rub together and I spent large parts of my childhood fending for myself because my mother was always out working multiple jobs, trying to earn enough to keep our heads above water. But I never felt hard done by and am forever proud of those working-class roots.
I refused to allow being ‘a kid from a housing estate’ to hold me back. In fact, it would turn out to be one of my greatest strengths, not least because there have been countless occasions when I’ve been able to surprise those who underestimated me.
Although other people I’ve come across in the dance industry and the wider world have been born into privilege and had easier access to opportunities, I had determination, guts, resourcefulness and a hunger to push beyond expectations.
Where you start out doesn’t have to put a limit on where you can go.
I was picked on for being in receipt of free meals but that didn’t bother me. It was different for my brother David; he would just about die of shame if he had to stand in the free lunch queue, whereas I was more pragmatic and just saw it as a way of getting a good hot dinner in my belly as opposed to a soggy butty.
On the Leasowe, we lived at number 61 Cameron Road on the second floor of the block in a two-bedroom flat which my mother kept spotless. We had no fridge, no phone or washing machine, but we did have a coal fire and Mum made that place a beautiful home. On top of working relentlessly, she ensured it was spick and span.
She’d risk life and limb to clean the windows – I can still picture her now, clear as day, as I was coming home from school.
‘Is that your mother hanging from the window at the top?’ asked my friends, shocked and impressed in equal measure. It sure was, God love her.
Later, we moved opposite, to number 43, which was an upgrade – a marvellous little three-bed house that had its own yard – but we always lived very much hand to mouth and David and I were expected to muck in with the shopping and cooking, keeping the plates spinning while Mum was at work.
Despite the various hardships we had to contend with, I remember it as a carefree life in many ways. My friends and I would play out on the street with our marbles – ‘ollies’ as we used to call them on Merseyside – and we’d spend the weekends at the Derby Pool in Wallasey, a huge lido which has sadly long since shut down.
My mum always did the best she could in extremely tough circumstances. She’s an indomitable woman, always smiling, never grumbling. She could be as sick as a dog, but you wouldn’t ever hear that woman complain.
‘We don’t do moaning in this house,’ she’d say.
Still says that.
Because I knew she struggled to provide everything, I took great care of what few possessions I had. I remember one day we went into Marks & Spencer where she spotted a beautiful dark brown velvet jacket for me. Velvet was very popular at the time, but Marksies was too expensive for us, so she found a cheaper version in Littlewoods next door.
When we got home, she stewed over it because she always wanted me to have the best and, in the end, she returned the less
expensive jacket and managed to cobble together the funds to buy the lovelier one from M&S after all.
So, I was never the child who mislaid a jumper or scuffed my shoes and I’m like that to this day – I crave consistency, organisation and need to know where everything is. I value everything I own and rarely lose anything.
I was a very instinctive child, vigilant and quick on the uptake – you don’t get those skills by being spoiled rotten. You get them because you have to learn to survive.
‘You will recognise your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.’
JERRY GILLIES
There’s a little poetic expression I love and which I use a lot when teaching.
‘Devotion to the motion equals emotion.’
The more you devote to your craft and the more you can move your body, the greater the emotion you’ll feel and convey. The reason I like it so much is because it doesn’t just apply to dance – in a broader sense it’s about the relationship between
effort and outcome and how pouring your heart and soul into something can fuel a fire.
That’s exactly what I did from the moment I began my ballroom journey following that chance encounter at Brownies. It meant I had to give up the ballet lessons I’d been attending since I was two because we didn’t have the money for me to do both, so the pursuit of one dream meant the end of something else.
But that’s just the way it was. When you’re working just to scrape by, as my mother always was, you have to make tough choices – although there were a few things she refused to compromise on and that was putting good food on the table and a decent pair of shoes on our feet.
Knowing that we’d both made sacrifices for me to go along to ballroom classes gave me an extra bite. I never once took those lessons for granted. I wouldn’t say I was the most talented dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but I was definitely the one who never missed a class. I was devoted to the art of dance.
Without fail, I went along every Saturday to Vic and May Knox’s studio in the church hall and grafted like a demon to pick the steps up quickly – I wasn’t born with a natural dancing ability, but I knew how to plug away and persist. I firmly believe that you don’t have to be the most skilful or accomplished in your field, whatever it is, to make it to the top. It’s not the fanciest footwork but the determination to get up, show up and outwork everyone else which will set you apart.
Talent will get you so far. It’s hard work which really takes you places.
Not even the setbacks (and there were many) could shake my resolve. Every three months at Vic and May’s, we’d undergo
these medal tests followed by an open evening where all the kids could showcase their talents to family and friends. There was a big silver trophy up for grabs that night, but I never won it. I’d often get highly commended and always got the highest marks, but I wasn’t ever quite ‘good’ enough … I felt that injustice so keenly.
However, rather than dampen my spirits, I think it lit a flame in me. Giving up would have been the easy option, but I wanted that silver trophy and every time I was snubbed, it spurred me on. Those kinds of knockbacks tend to have that effect on me. Over the years, I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been told I’d never amount to anything, but whenever somebody has said ‘you can’t’, it’s made me grit my teeth, dig my heels in and try again.
And powering this determination was the fact I’d fallen hook, line and sinker for dance. It was like stepping into another world, one which was extraordinary to me. The music, the expression, the way every movement told a story, it made my heart race, and it felt like home.
At the Knoxes’ studio I’d been paired with another little girl called Irene Hamilton who was a neighbour on the Leasowe housing estate, although her family were well off compared to us. The Hamiltons had a car, which was vital once we started to compete, and they were happy to drive the two of us to various competitions around Wales and the Northwest.
However, there was a sinister side to life in that dance studio. Put it this way, things went on with regard to other girls which absolutely shouldn’t have and when I told my mum about them, she pulled me out of there immediately. Irene’s mother got her
out too and they moved us both to Margaret Redmond’s over the River Mersey in Crosby. It was 13 miles away but Irene’s dad drove us there and back.
Margaret was a renowned Latin teacher – her father Alf taught ballroom while her mother, Florence, made all the dresses and boy oh boy were they the best in the business – and both Irene and I came on leaps and bounds under her tutelage. So the decision to move, although forced by other events, turned out to be game-changing. I sometimes look back at it as a Sliding Doors moment, a tweak that triggered a domino effect and changed everything.
Not long after we left the Knox studio, Irene and I won a silver trophy at the Capitol Ballroom in Liscard and I’ve still got it to this day. It’s only small, but that trophy was symbolic of something bigger.
Irene and I had been at Margaret’s for a few months when she floated the idea of pairing us up with boy partners –two she knew well had become available, one of them being a boy called David Fleet who was already very experienced and super talented.
The Hamiltons were certain that Irene was going to nab David because they had the finances to support the partnership, plus the car to get them to and from competitions. But after both of us had danced with him, Margaret announced, ‘David would like to dance with Shirley.’
I was gobsmacked. It was the first moment I’d ever felt worthy of anything and I’ll never forget that. But David’s decision to choose me caused an uproar and even though Irene lived just a few roads away, her father never drove me to Crosby
again. Now, you might think this was ridiculously petty of them. And you’d be right! But it wasn’t a situation I spent a single minute getting in a flap about – that wasn’t how my mother had raised me. It was merely the latest obstacle in my life that I had to find a solution for.
I worked out that to get myself to Margaret’s Crown Studios, I’d have to walk from my house to the bus stop, hop on the bus to Leasowe train station, catch the train to Liverpool Central, run across the city to the old Ribble bus station and then jump on the Ribble bus to Crosby.
It was about two hours door-to-door and I made that journey every single week from the age of 12.
The mind boggles now with all the potential dangers for a young girl venturing across towns and cities on her own, but at the time it was a case of needs must and the only possible way I could continue with the thing I loved most.
As winter drew in and the nights started getting darker, my mother arranged for me to stay with David’s family from the Friday night to the Sunday night. We’d practise when I arrived at his, have our lesson with Margaret on the Saturday and then I’d make my way back on the Sunday evening, running across Liverpool to catch the train in the pitch black with sweat pouring down my back.
I’d get off at Hoylake, which is where my mother worked in Finnigan’s steakhouse, and I started waiting tables there, working late before coming home with Mum in the early hours.
It didn’t take me long to work out that you got good tips from the customers if you went the extra mile, so I injected a bit of personality into my waitressing spiel.
‘Hands up if you want the pie! Hands up if you want the steak!’ I’d call out rather than meekly taking down their orders, and they liked that bit of feistiness. It made me stand out. You were supposed to put your tips in a jar to be shared among all the staff, but I knew I worked harder than everybody else, so I used to stick mine straight down my little padded bra.
When I got home, I’d unclip the bra and all the coins would clatter to the floor. I’d stack them up on the telly and say to my mum, ‘Put that towards the shoes,’ knowing how much she scrimped and saved to afford the gear I needed for dance.
David Fleet and I were often competing on the Sunday and although Margaret Redmond would drive us there from the studio, I had to get myself home to Wallasey from any number of different locations across the region. I got used to asking people for help. My mother always said I had no shame, but I don’t think it was that – it was born out of necessity. Dance felt like my destiny and I had to find whichever way I could to make this work.
I’d got to know some of the older couples on the competition circuit – Zoe and Charles were one, Frank and Lil another – and if I spotted them at the venue we were competing in, I knew I’d have a ride home and could rest easy that I was getting back safely that evening.
Their kindness has stayed with me and is one of the reasons I always make sure I go through life paying it forward. Generosity should have a ripple effect. If someone is good to us, we have a responsibility to find a way of giving back to somebody else who hasn’t had it quite as breezy.
My mother was always working but she made time to watch me dance whenever she could. Every month she’d come along with her best friend, my auntie Mavis, to the competition at the Capitol Ballroom, and once I started going to the iconic Blackpool Tower Ballroom – the undisputed home of ballroom dancing – she’d make sure her bum was on that front-row seat watching her little girl dance. But the regular here, there and everywhere competitions, she simply wasn’t able to attend.
This was all perfectly normal to me; I didn’t know any different and I’m so grateful when I look back because without those skills, I wouldn’t have been so self-sufficient my whole life.
I was learning how to manoeuvre, how to survive and go it alone.
It was sink or swim.
‘Passion is energy.
Feel the power from focusing on what excites you.’
OPRAH WINFREY
There comes a point when chasing the dream means taking it to the next level. And knowing when to make that move up the gears is key.
Although David Fleet and I did quite well together for a while – semi-finalists in the junior Latin championships and
fourth place in the north of England junior ballroom finals – the partnership was never destined for greatness.
So when I was offered the opportunity for a try-out with ex-junior British ballroom champion Nigel Tiffany, I didn’t hesitate. When we arrived, Nigel actually thought he was trying out with my mother – that’s how young and gorgeous she was!
Nigel was 18 and four years older than me and dancing with him would be a huge step up the ladder – indeed, my mother initially put her foot down and said absolutely not because she couldn’t afford either the lessons we’d need or the travel costs for competitions.
Nevertheless, I was encouraged to give it a go by my good friend Neil Lunt, who came from a famous Liverpool dancing family, and as soon as Nigel took me in his arms, I was sold. You could say that I was swept off my feet.
My mother always managed to find it in the budget to stretch to one private lesson a week, but the finances were the least of my worries. Nigel lived nearly 80 miles away in Shipley, West Yorkshire, which gave me my biggest transport headache to date. Getting there involved a bus, three trains and hours of travelling – each way – which simply wasn’t sustainable every weekend.
In the end, dancing with Nigel meant moving to Shipley, which was a big decision for my mother and a huge wrench for me. I was still only 14, so I had to change schools and move in with a family I barely knew. There was Nigel, his parents, his younger brother, David, and sister, Carol, and I missed my mother desperately.
But again, it was just what I had to do to make this work. If I go back in my mind and put myself in Mum’s shoes, my whole body fills with anxiety.
Nigel was his mother’s favourite. He was the superstar dancer and the golden child with a great job at the Bradford & Bingley building society and looked to have a bright future ahead. That bright future did indeed blossom as Nigel went on to become my financial advisor, a job he still does to this day.
Lucky Nigel!
While I’ll always be grateful to the Tiffanys for putting me up, I was undoubtedly the outsider and although my mother paid five pounds a week towards my room and board – everything she could manage – Mrs Tiffany, who absolutely ruled the roost, wouldn’t allow me to use the little spin dryer Mum had given me because she said it cost too much electricity to run. Instead I’d have to hang my clothes out on the line.
She’d also count the potatoes she prepared in the pressure cooker to make sure I didn’t pinch one, which I often did because as a growing girl I was permanently hungry! There was a lock on the landline so I couldn’t use it, but I learned how to unpick it with a hair clip. I’d wait until everyone in the house was in bed and then creep down the stairs to call my mum (she had a telephone by then), holding down the dial as it wound back to reduce the noise, petrified someone would wake up and catch me.
My mother would pick up at her end and I’d whisper, ‘Mum, I’m OK.’
Just hearing her voice was enough to carry me through the next few days.
Although there were periods where I was homesick and really quite down, it never occurred to me to quit. When you have a goal, something you believe in and feel is worth fighting for, you move heaven and earth to make it a reality.
‘Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.’
HARRIET TUBMAN
Having been a bright, well-performing student at my school back home in Wallasey, when I moved to Shipley I fell behind, mainly because my focus was on dance and competing. Nigel and I would spend every weekend travelling up and down the country to take part in competitions and we were making good progress up the rankings. We would eventually perform a Viennese Waltz on the BBC’s prestigious Come Dancing in 1977 when I was still only 16, so we were certainly good together.
I’d also started bunking off class, spending my days sleeping in the back of Nigel’s yellow Mini while he went to work.
Unsurprisingly, my O-level results in 1976 were nothing to write home about and by then I couldn’t wait to leave education
behind, landing a job in a solicitor’s office where my pay was 16 quid a week.
Now that I was earning my own money, it was down to me to pay Mrs Tiffany my room and board – if I ever got stuck, my mum would help with dresses or shoes, but I had to learn how to budget on that weekly wage.
I did this by writing lists. I still love a list. My mother had always written them for David and me (‘go to the grocery store, peel the potatoes, put the food on by 5pm, tidy your room, bring the washing in’) and I’ve carried that right through my life – although I know my obsession with them can drive other people mad!
Anyway, back then it was five pounds for two dance lessons and I’d have to pay Mrs Tiffany the fiver for my board. The six quid I had left would go to Nigel for petrol, perhaps some new rhinestones for my dresses, and I’d try if I could to put a little bit aside in the bank.
I should add here that by now, Nigel and I had fallen in love and planned to marry.We were just kids, of course, but he was solid, dependable and soft-natured and we were a team in every sense.
However, Mrs Tiffany was not happy when she discovered that our dance partnership had spilled over into romance. I felt I was never going to be good enough for her precious son and she blamed me entirely for the relationship, calling me every name under the sun and making me feel like I was in the wrong, ignoring the fact that it takes (ahem) two to tango! I’ve never quite understood how she worked that one out.
While the Tiffanys did eventually accept we were together as a couple, I was getting itchy feet in Yorkshire and knew that if we wanted to continue our trajectory then a move to London was going to be necessary.