S5 E2: Shirley Ballas, dancer

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08I'm Grace Dent and this is Comfort Eating from The Guardian. A podcast where we pay homage to the lesser celebrated foods in life. Because even as a restaurant critic, I believe the food that matters most is often that snack you cobbled together when you curled upon the sofa. Each week, I ask my guest to lift the lid on what comfort foods have seen them through their lives. Because you can tell a lot about a person from what they eat behind closed doors.

0:47Hello friends, welcome to, well, not my kitchen this time, but instead the back of a London taxi. I'm on a comfort eating road trip to the home of this week's guest It's Shirley Ballas Shirley is of course the head judge on BBC One's flagship dance competition Strictly Come Dancing And you obviously don't get that job out of nowhere Shirley's been a dance legend in her own right for decades She's probably won more worldwide Latin dance titles than I've had hot dinners to be honest and she's trained countless other champion dancers too. But she's got her dance shoes in many pies. She's also about to bring out her first raunchy crime novel and it is raunchy, I've read it.

1:40Murder on the Dance Floor. She's having me over to hers for the interview. Look, she invited me as if I was going to say no and I'm half expecting her to open that front door in full-on glitzy dance costume, gorgeous fake tan, nails done, done up to the nines, because that is the only Shirley I've ever known. I cannot wait to meet the real woman behind the sequence.

2:15Shirley Ballas, welcome to Comfort Eaton. Oh, I'm delighted to be here, Grace. Thank you for having me in your house. You're welcome. I just feel, I feel very honoured. There's a skeleton sitting on your bar with a wig on that keeps giving me a massive fright. What's the significance of the skeleton? Well, I won that skeleton on one of the TV shows and my mother loved him so much that she put a wig on, a cigarette in his mouth. And he sits behind the bar and that's my mother's dance partner when she's had a couple of whiskeys. now it is time to find out what my guest likes to eat behind closed doors what is shirley ballas dance legend strictly come dancing icon what are you choosing for your snack is it here under the box it's here underneath the box would you like me to reveal it for you my darling your snack okay this my dear is my snack oh my gosh this is coffee cake with a lovely coffee icing and then walnuts on the top and then whipped cream fresh whipped cream with a cup of coffee with two brown sugars and two dollops of coffee mate which I first tasted when I was 16 and worked in the solicitor's office and I used to would be the tea girl and that's where I was introduced to coffee mate and now for me if I have one cup of coffee a day with a spoon of coffee mate it's classed as a treat thank you for bringing cake to comfort eating oh my gosh if you've seen some of the miserable meals that have been served some of the weird and wonderful but disgusting things what I have in front of me is this gorgeous sweet smelling coffee cake And then is that just cream?

4:03Fresh cream, darling. A little sugar in there, beaten and whipped all over it. It's always difficult a little bit when I'm running up to anything. Like strictly, I have to really watch what I'm eating. But that is my go-to cake. I love anything coffee. I'm not judging you because I love, is that instant coffee? That's instant coffee. I love an instant coffee. I think that we put too much. Little mellow birds, darling. Little mellow birds. Mellow birds, a little bit of coffee mates and brown sugar. I couldn't be happier than I am. Lovely piece of coffee cake with walnuts and fresh cream right sliding down your throat.

4:36Look, I know that you are in training at the moment where those tiny, tiny, little, little tiny backless frontless spangle thongs that basically. So what I'm going to do for you is I'm going to eat this cake. Yes, thank you. Because right now I'm juicing. You poor thing. Oh my God, that's so... Is that lovely? No, so good. Oh my goodness. Shirley, can I not tempt you? Yes, you can. Just have one little, just one little bit. But don't tell anybody. There you go, just one little bit.

5:19Watchers of Strictly Come Dancing, if Shirley has to wear a bigger dress. Wants on the lips forever on your hips. It really is. but as I am not It is lovely isn't it? As I'm not competing in this year Strictly Come Dancing I'm just going to have this bit here hang on a minute I'm just testing that the bottom's as good as the top Yeah it is That is yummy

5:49Early you were born in Merseyside in 1960 you grew up on the Leeso housing estate with your mum Audrey your older brother David it. What was life like on the Lizzo? We originally lived in a different place and my mum obviously when she got divorced she had to move on to that housing estate and we suffered bullying particularly my brother. I think because we didn't quite speak like everybody else on the housing estate and I think my mother is very refined you know with her upbringing, the way she dressed us, the manners she insisted, things like that. So is you and your mum and your brother, was your dad there?

6:30No, he left when I was two. So he went on his way, he got married four times, my mother being the first. And he had a couple of children later on to somebody else. And then David and I. But we didn't really see him a lot at all. Take me back to those days in the house. You two, you and your brother, you're very close in age. and your mum's raising you single-handedly. So do you and David, do you just run her ragged? What's it like in the house? Well, my mother had probably two or three jobs at the time. You know, she was always a proud lady. She wanted us always to be dressed. The one thing with my mother, work ethic, never lazy, schedules, organized.

7:12So therefore my brother and I were organized. My brother was a, he was a strong character, my brother, and very strict with me. Wouldn't let me hang out on street corners with my friends or, you know, had to be appropriately dressed, you know, probably with a blouse all the way up to my neck like the Virgin Mary. But he would push me to be all that I could be for sure, because obviously we didn't have a dad. So he took on that role when he got older as well, you know. But was money still tight, even though your mum's working so hard? Oh, they didn't pay anything back then. You know, she, her best job she ever had in her life that she enjoyed the most was she was a barmaid.

7:49then she'd do some babysitting then she worked in cabarees the chocolate factory on cakes and then she had an opportunity to earn a couple of pounds more so she learned how to drive a forklift truck she passed that exam so they put her in the warehouse that little tiny five foot woman of mine my mom and she was driving that forklift I've got photographs of that somewhere as well yeah she was quite the worker your mom worked at cabarees so I mean I grew up near a biscuit factory was the misshapen Cadbury's biscuits and cakes was that like currency every Friday darling we got the misshapen biscuits every Friday was very exciting which what biscuit I like all biscuits that's what people won't know about me I I really have to be self-disciplined not to eat sweets otherwise I will sit and eat sweets all day I just love sweets back at that time when your mum's working in the pub and doing these different jobs what was she cooking in the house well she taught my brother and i from a young age how to cook a roast dinner so we'd go on a saturday to the grocery store david would have to get all the veg and i would go to the co-op to get all the other ingredients we need so we knew how to cut potatoes up we knew how to get the oven ready if she was working and prepare every sunday she always did two veg you would have roasties and mashedies a lovely bovril gravy and meat and Yorkshire pud.

9:10That was every Sunday without fail because I think she'd been paid on the Friday. So big Sunday lunch. Oh like a trucker's dinner. And then as the week went on like was there still money? Well you go to we could have beans on toast by the end of the week. We had egg and chips which I loved didn't know any different. Fish fingers and chips something like that as the money went on but we always had a meal. You know she always made sure that we had a good meal. But Sundays was the biggest deal. And then on a Saturday, it would all be Sayers, the cake shop. And her and I would share a tart, a strawberry tart, and my brother and a Claire.

9:47And if the ice cream man came and there was extra, we got an ice cream as well. What about school dinners? I love school dinners because obviously we didn't have a dad and we go to the school dinners and I had figured out where in the queue to stand. So I got the most dinners. I loved it, you know. hang on where did you know to stand to get more food what is this magic trick i figured out if you went first you only got a little bit of food because obviously they've got the whole school to feed so i figured out where in the queue i could stand so when they had excess food i mean it was a little bit of a gamble you know because if they've run out of a roasty you're not going to get a roasty but sometimes i get two roasties and sometimes you get extra pudding nobody likes semolina.

10:30Nobody liked rice pudding. I did. So I got everybody else's semolina. I was a good eater. I like to eat, but I'm very grateful for my school dinners. And then when it got to the holidays, you qualified for free. Yes. And my brother was so embarrassed because the kids used to stand at the front gate and shout, you haven't got a dad. You're on the welfare, you know. And I, as I'd come out, my response was but you've had a cheese sandwich and I've had a cooked meal but it affected my brother he we were not the same type of character he was embarrassed yeah and I couldn't care less so I just wanted to get my cooked meal because you know my mum was busy or out to work and but you even at that age you just didn't care I didn't I didn't that's fascinating like I there was no anxiety I think stopping you eating my mum said I was just built a little bit differently.

11:24You know, David was very sensitive and I know when we didn't have anywhere to live at the very beginning, my mom had sent him to live with their friend and I'd stayed with my mother. She had to swap us over because he pined and I was okay without her. So we were just different types of children. I think I was really quite strong, even as a small character. My mother said I was the kid upside down in the pram screaming and jumping and going. And David was much more reserved and quiet like my mum. So maybe somewhere in there, I've got some of my dad's genes, but I didn't know him overly well, but maybe I got a little bit more of him.

12:06When you were seven, you discovered dancing. How did you find that calling? Was there a moment? Well, first of all, I wanted to be in everything, singing, dancing, tennis, chess. And then one day I was the girl guides and we were doing CPR on these dummies, which was just disastrous for me. But anyway, and I heard this music and the music was Moon River. I could hear it coming from somewhere. I thought, where's that music coming from? So I followed the music and it was in another church hall, just a little bit down the corridor. And it had a door with a round window on. I pulled myself up and I saw all these people moving to music.

12:44I didn't know what it was they were doing at the time. I opened the door and this man called Vic Knox came over and he goes, can I help you? I said, are you going to do children's classes in this? And he said, yes, we start Saturday. What is it about dancing? I think as a child, I was quite bossy. I think that's the first time I've ever said that, but I think I was quite bossy. And I knew if I sat back, there was nowhere to go, whether it was defending yourself. I remember getting beaten up at school and having my hair pulled out. And I thought, you know, I'm going to have to be, have a tough shell if I'm going to exist here.

13:15And I think with the dancing, I just fell in love with the music first. And then when I went to the first dance class and learned the waltz and learned the cha-cha-cha, they did medal tests about every three months. And I had to hit 98%. I wanted to get highly commended on these reports, even in the dancing. Did you ever go to the sweet shop on the way home? I did once or twice. One or two of those little sweeties might have fell in my bag by accident, but never mind. Nobody had any money for sweets. Oh my God. Do you know what I'm saying? This is an absolute revelation. All the kids back then on that housing estate, you know, they were all trying to get a few sweets.

13:55The old five-fingered discount. What was it called? The little lemon sherbets and the rhubarb and custard little hard sweets, you know, I mean, just one or two. Because they'd add them in like little, you know, them little things where you go in and you put the scoop in. Where do you stand on licorice? If I could sit in a tub of licorice and bathe, I would. I wasn't expecting that. I love licorice. And it helps you go to the bathroom if you have it at night with coffee. I'm just saying. Oh, Lord. I have lost control of this interview. It's true. Licorice is another one to go. Is it really? Soft licorice, hard licorice, round licorice, long licorice.

14:34I don't care as long as it's licorice. I've never had advice on my bowels on comfort eating. And the show has been a lot poorer for it.

14:54When you were 15, you leave home and you begin competing with a new dance partner, Nigel Tiffany, who's already the British Ballroom Dance Champion. And within a year, you're engaged. Now, it sounds so exciting on paper. You're living your dream. you've fallen in love you're dancing in big competitions but you were still so young it all happened so fast suddenly a whole new life away from home and your family how did you find that somehow we'd run into difficulty with his mom and dad because there's this love affair going on under her roof and one or two things happened you know I remember going to Filey when I was about 16 he was four years older than me and off we go to Filey to do a dance competition we fell in love am I allowed to say that absolutely so him and I you know took the bit the bullet as they said quite intimate with each other and when we came home and his mum unpacked his bag there was a packet of Jurex right there in the bag and from she just stood there as the two of us stood there staring at us she was mortified disgusted this that and the other I'm going to tell your mother you are this you are that I mean some strange names I've never heard from myself actually and anyway that weekend when I went to see my mother I told my mother and my mother turned to me and she said did you take precautions love and I said yes and she said well then you're okay then and that was the end of that with my mother of course sparks are gonna go off a bit you're madly in love we were gonna get married we planned our life what was his mother like with you after that very strict she was a strict mom she kind of ruled the roost she had four kids I understand that but she gave me a start and then after that all hit the fan I said to Nigel I'm moving to London so I was barely 17 and moving to London we moved to George Street and Croydon we had our own self-contained flat I got down there I had to find a job underqualified terrible spelling in an office with four other very experienced secretaries I mean what what are your secretarial skills skills well I did all the filing when it was an emergency I couldn't find where I filed anything and I remember when I was I wrote a letter once and where and where I had got missed the h out wherever and of course it was in the big chair and I'm taking down my short hand and his partner came and he goes oh my god your secretary can't even spell I said well if you correct it I'll I'll do it I'll retype it so it was I got 60 pounds a week in that job aren't you 60 pounds a week I was able to keep myself take care of myself but are you dancing in the big leagues now oh we were just amateurs we weren't doing anything great it was six months after I moved to London I got a call from my dance teacher I'm typing away on this golf ball type of writer typing away and she called me on the phone and she said you've got an opportunity to dance with Sammy Stockford she said I'm not saying you'll get the part but I think you should do the tryout she said I know you're engaged I know you live with Nigel I know you want to get married but if you want to have a very successful career you're not going to make it in latin with nigel sammy stopford sammy stopford i mean he sounds sexy so even just the name so i said to her well can i let you know tomorrow she said no you've got an hour to make a decision and if you decide to do it do not tell nigel well i went home that night nigel was doing the ironing after work and i decided i'd tell nigel i've got this opportunity to try out with sammy stopford latin is in my heart even though you know we did ballroom together and there was a big fight he threw me out with all my plastic bags black plastic bags so you had to make a choice right there or then i loved him dearly in actual fact i can honestly say he's my financial advisor nigel today if anything happened to me nigel would take over everything in my life that's how long we've been we remain friends after you know we over the split and everything.

18:48He was probably the right man for me at the wrong time. Yeah. The right man at the wrong time. And I love him dearly. He so loved. But got this opportunity with Sammy, went for the tryout, black plastic bags in tow. He looked at me, goes, I don't know who you are, Shirley. What's your name again? I said, Shirley Rich. This poor broke. But anyway, my name is Shirley Rich. He said, well, I know who you are, but Your teacher thinks that I should give you a chance for a tryout. He took one little go of my hand in a beautiful, beautiful sensitive hold, a beautiful step back in rumba, and he goes, I don't know who you are, but I will take you.

19:28You feel like a Rolls Royce. Pack your bags up. You're coming to Manchester with me. And that's when I went off to Manchester. I feel like a Rolls Royce. No one's ever said that to me. So now I've moved from my grandma's house to the Liso flat, from the Liso flat to the Liso house, from the Liso House to Shipley in Yorkshire, from Shipley in Yorkshire to London. Short space of time there, London, back to Manchester, and I'm barely 17 and a half.

20:03Let me ask you one thing about Latin American and ballroom dancing. it feels as if they're two very different things. Is it a bit like West Side Story and you've got to pick your dance crew? And is it like cliques? You're either Latin or you're ballroom or can you do both? You can do both. And I chose to do both. So I was knowledgeable in both with not realizing at the time that when you get older like this, I can teach ballroom or Latin. And I loved the ballroom. My journey with Nigel, we were in the semifinal of the ballroom and maybe the second round of the Latin. I got an education from the ballroom that really helped me in the Latin.

20:43But when I went with Sammy Stockford, he was Latin, seventh as a professional, just outside the final. And that's when I turned professional and did it as a living. And I have to say, I went into my job and I said, I've got this opportunity. I know you require three months notice. He went, take the opportunity, darling. You go, you do your dancing. at the time I thought, what a good man. Years later, I thought in his mind, he was saying, bloody awful secretary, that Shirley Rich. I just want someone that can spell. Forever grateful for him for giving me that job though. With Sammy, things click and you quickly went on.

21:21You win your first major title at 18. Meteororic rise. Never been seen in the industry since. After a couple of years, you and Sammy decided to get married. we got married we did that's what everybody did back then alan and hazel fletcher espin and shusht and solberg sammy and shirley stopford the non-stop stopfords they called us did you just refer to yourself as the non-stop stopfords that's right that's what they put us in the press as in the dance news you know we have our own press front page i want you to answer me something that i often think about so you've had two of these dance partners you've passionately fallen in love with i did i fall in love with you if you sit there long enough that's the kind of person i am in strictly come dancing it's also had its share of people getting together what i'm too i'm frightened to do strictly come dancing don't be darling what a passionate run that would be i know but i think that i would literally crash my own life into in in into a tree by falling in love with my dancer within about two weeks.

22:29Even if he was like 22 and lived on the other side of the world normally, that's what worries me. You're in this like intimate relationship of rumbering, you know, dancing sensually with each other and your body's moving close to one another and sensitivity and touch on the neck and down the body. And it's like, I can't explain, it's like euphoria. It's It's just a different place. The sweat pouring from underneath your ears and down the back of your back to the point where your feet are so sore because you've been dancing all day and one rubs the other one's feet. You know, it's just the whole thing is what it is.

23:07You know what I mean? You should never let a man give you a foot rub because nothing good is going to come from that. If he is not your actual partner, that is a rule in life that I have. thank you very much

23:30hello Grace Dent here one more thing if you love comfort eating then you'll love my new book comfort eating what we eat when no one's looking it's available on October the 5th and to pre-order now there's an e-book and an audio book if you want me to read it to you with chapter headings like Why Butter Makes Everything Better and Why Potatoes Are Proof of a Higher Power, How Can You Resist. Comfort Eating is packed with funny, moving stories about my family and my childhood, as well as recipes and stories about recording the show. And over October, I'll be out on book tour right across the country.

24:12If you're in London on October the 9th, I'm at the Islington Assembly Hall talking with Katie Wicks from Ghosts. And on the 11th of October, I'm at the Contact Theatre in Manchester in conversation with MasterChef's Jimmy Famowera. For tickets UK-wide, check out my social media. And for London and Manchester, go to theguardian.com forward slash comforteatinglive. I'll see you there. In 1980, you and Sammy get married. what do two champion latin dancers serve at their wedding buffet we had a very simple wedding my mom bought my dress it was beautiful and my dad didn't come but that's okay my brother gave me away and we had a buffet in the studio we had sandwiches and we had sausage on sticks and we had a pineapple and and cheese and coleslaw and we had all those cold foods all around the table and everybody just had a ball.

25:11I remember I did my own hair, my own makeup. That was, yeah. Were you happy? What is happy? I don't want to sit here and say, I was happy, it's what you did. Did you want to get married? I always fancied the idea of getting married. And let me tell you, I really, I want to say that I really did care about Sammy a lot, but we never dated, we never went out. We had one holiday in the whole time we were there. We worked ourselves to death trying to get this result. and I don't think there was a lot of room for who are you now what do you really like to do what are your passions he was very very into his football and different things that he was doing and and you're young young I want to go out and party and it was difficult you're young you've got a husband you're winning prizes you're dancing we won the British Open Championships at age 22 that was unheard of you know this kid that come from the 96 of the amateur and suddenly has had this journey already at 22 I'm standing there in the winter gardens floor Blackpool holding that trophy and realizing to myself there's got to be more to life than this but then everything changed in 1983 you meet the man with whom you'd go on to win countless dance titles all over the world yes who became your second husband of over 20 years and father to your son Mark tell me about the first moment you lock eyes with the dashing Texan, Corky Ballas.

26:39I met Corky Ballas in Canada at a championship and Sammy and I flew over there to do this championship in Montreal, Canada. We did the professional Latin, we won and then this young man came over, same age as me but he had these bottle-rimmed glasses on, he was really short-sighted, bottle-rimmed glasses on and he walked over and he goes, I'd like you to come to Houston, Texas. He said, and teach me how to dance with my partner. I'm a pro amateur dancer, which is what we see on Strictly, that's pro-am. And I'd really love you to come and teach me to dance. And then Sammy had all these stipulations.

27:12Well, we need a guarantee. We need this. We need that. We need this. Don't worry. Whatever you want, whether you work or not, you'll get your check. That's all Sammy wanted to hear. So February was when we went to Montreal and March was when we went to Texas to teach Corky. Hang on, how's Corky paying for all this? Because his father invented the weed eater, the strimmer that cuts the weeds from around the trees. You know that thing with the wire? What? His father invented that. The weed whacker, it was originally called. That's the family I married into, the weed eater family. So Corky's got money.

27:44They had plenty of it, put it that way. I mean, this is, you're not in Merseyside anymore, are you? I know. So off we go. We arrive in Houston, Texas. We get off the plane and there is a helicopter waiting for us. So we get in the helicopter. We land on the top of his dad's hotel, which is the West Chase Hilton. And then from there, it was whisked around in this limousine everywhere. That's the kind of lifestyle they led. And the teaching went pretty well. We did very, very good. And in the middle of the week, Corky said, I'd like to take you both out for dinner. And Sammy said, I don't really do that.

28:17Stack me up a bunch of videos for me to watch, but take my wife. She'd really enjoy that. And that was the beginning of the end. So he took me. I met all his family, five brothers and sisters. His mom and dad were awesome. His mother was a flamenco dancer. his dad was an entrepreneur the brothers and sisters was all family which I didn't really have other than my mom and my brother. And you go out to a restaurant? We go out to a restaurant I still remember it he pulls up outside the West Chase Hilton in his Mercedes Benz and then he went to give me a kiss and I said no I'm married I'm so sorry.

28:48Did you fancy him? He was very good looking very good looking and he said okay I'm so sorry I'm so sorry he said but if you accept my invitation at the end of the week I would like to be able to kiss you and that's how it started. that's how now that was passionate that was with it was just a you know do i regret to hurt sammy but i was young what you know when you're 17 even when you're 22 what do you know and but you hadn't had a proper i didn't have any passion i didn't have a passionate relationship although i had a relationship that taught me about the industry and i knew that if i stayed married to sammy he would never hurt me he would always be there for me but I felt there was something missing and that's why I left

29:421985 Houston with a family who've got more money than god it sounds was the food amazing at their house? Were they eating incredible things? Let's relive that, shall we? So they had a big round table with a lazy Susan in the middle. And my father-in-law had chefs and cooks. They didn't cook. Other people cooked. And they'd bring all sorts of food out there. You know, there was always some sort of really fresh potato dish with best butter and corn on the cobs. And, you know, he was Greek, my father-in-law, and my mother-in-law was Mexican. So you always had all these kind of comfort foods you know i just got went bigger and bigger and bigger over the time there but yeah their spread for dinner every night every night every night whether one person turned up or 10 of us turned up so staff at the same time every night there's a room and it's just laden with food laden with food all swiveling around on that lazy susan but it does sound like Dallas you know the I mean with Larry Hagman yeah it sounds like to me it feels as if you're painting a picture of like you know 1985 Houston the big house the drama we got married in a beautiful church the dress the flowers the real doves the ice sculptors uh she had it all and I think we had probably 400 guests it was really really lavish were you happy on that day what is happy you know because i because after three months in houston texas i called sammy to say i'm missing you i want to come back i want to carry on dancing and he basically said no you'll be nothing but a wallflower you made your choice and then i called my mother and she said well i guess you made your bed you better lie in it it's a lovely bed though yeah lovely with so i thought okay sheets i'm gonna changed every day by the way all monogrammed uh i said to corky well i guess I'm going to have to teach you to be a professional dancer.

31:45So we came back probably around 84, 85. So it was from starting from scratch for me. And that's when I learned the most. And in 1995, we were first and Sammy was second. Took me that long from 83 to 95 to win again. When you're training for competitions around this point, what do you eat then, you know, on a daily basis? I mean, are you eating? Do you eat a lot of protein like athletes? I didn't know much about what to put in your body back then. You know, I wasn't so conscious. I just knew that, you know, you couldn't eat too much mashed potato and you couldn't eat bread. I tried to do that and cut down on the carbs, you know.

32:25When I got pregnant, I just went bananas. I gained all my baby weight in the first three months. What on? Shipley's donuts and milk. And I got so heavy. And my husband, Corky at the time, had a problem with being heavy. So he took my donuts and he cut all the chocolate icing off the top and then he put a big black roach in and then he put the icing back on the thing. So as I'm watching TV and I pick it up and I crunch it, I crunch the legs of the roach. I've never eaten a donut ever since that day. So all my life I've been around people that have told me, you know, you're too heavy or, you know, just different partners who would say you're going to look like that person.