Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Speaker 20:22

Uh

Presenter0:34

My castaways this week are the ice skaters Jane Torville and Christopher Dean. It's thirty years since they enthralled the world winning gold at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. So memorable it was truly a Where Were You When moment. The answer for most of us seems to have been in front of the telly. Twenty four million people in Britain alone tuned in to watch their purple chiffon passionate pitch perfect display. Their enduring partnership is the stuff of sporting legend, British, European, world, and of course Olympic champions. Their synchronicity on and off the rink is fascinating. Both brought up in Nottingham, both only children, they took to the ice within a couple of years of each other. Jane grew up to work as an insurance clerk, Chris was a policeman. They always seem so normal, so nice, so much like the boy and girl next door. What a neat trick. In reality, their originality, training regime, and relentless pursuit of perfection has seen them push the boundaries of their chosen discipline to rank among the world's elite.

Presenter1:33

And, of course, part of our fascination with them also stems from the decades long scrutiny and conjecture over their personal relationship. Never mind that over the decades they've both married other people and had children, as recently as last year they finally admitted, would you believe it to a brief teenage

Presenter1:50

They say it's an unusual relationship that we have. Of course, we love each other. You wouldn't be able to do all that we do without love. So love is definitely there. And I'm wondering also if there is in the relationship a balance of who is boss or not. Jane, is there? Is there a boss? I always say that I let Chris think that he's the boss. She's walking me from behind, like a puppet. Yes, like all good women in a relationship that works. For somebody like me who doesn't know anything about ice dancing apart from I love watching it, is it the case that it is ballroom dancing on a slippery surface? It's different. I would put it more to akin of the ballet world. In what we do, in length of line and the length of edge that we try to create is different, I think, from ballroom. And also in that respect then, Jane, is it the case that the ice is

Jayne Torvill2:04

Is it a pause?

Jayne Torvill2:09

She's watching me from behind like a puppet.

Jayne Torvill2:14

Yeah.

Presenter2:39

Not just your enemy, but your friend as well. We do try to make friends with the ice. But yes, you can have that great sense of freedom on the ice. You get lots of speed and you can take a beautiful line. For us, it looks magical, I think. Given the amount of time that you have both spent on the ice, do you almost feel more at home on the ice than off it? They laugh at us in the studio because sometimes we're demonstrating, but we happen to have a cup of coffee in our hand or something, and we still go through this. Somehow manage to not spill a drop. It's like a purser on a boat on a rocky sea, isn't it? Yeah, you still manage to do it.

Speaker 23:06

Upon the ice

Jayne Torvill3:10

That's like a

Jayne Torvill3:13

Yeah, he still managed to do it.

Presenter3:15

I personally, if I haven't skated for a few days, I will just take myself off to the rink and skate. Not as a recreational thing, but just as a thing of it. Feeling the ice. It's almost like being in an amphibious skin. You feel like you need water to get there. You need to get back to it again, yeah.

Jayne Torvill3:24

Uh

Speaker 23:24

Feeling the ice against the middle of the city.

Jayne Torvill3:27

Yeah.

Speaker 23:29

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill3:29

You need to go back to it again, yeah.

Presenter3:33

Eight choices between you today. Now, of course, you've spent much of your professional life listening to music and deciding what would work to dance to. Tell me about your first piece of music today. What are we going to hear? This is Let Her Go by Passenger. I think he's got a great natural voice, you know, that he doesn't feel like he's straining to sing. And I I like that. I like that inner singer.

Jayne Torvill3:51

Staring at the bottom of your glass Hoping one day you'll make a dream last But dreams come slow and it goes so far

Jayne Torvill4:03

You see it when you close your eyes Maybe one day you'll understand why Everything you touch surely dies

Jayne Torvill4:15

But you only need the light when it's burning low

Jayne Torvill4:19

Only miss the sun when it starts to snow Only know you love her when you let her go

Presenter4:28

That was passenger and let her go. So Chris, you got your first pair of skates when you were 10, I've read, is that right? That's correct, yeah, for Christmas time. Did you want them? It was a suggestion by my stepmum,'cause I lived in a little rural village called Calverton outside of Nottingham. And she as a teenager had been a recreational skater. Right. And she thought it was a good idea for me to do something and get out of a small village, a mining village. And got them for Christmas, opened them up, put them on and walked around the house for about the next week,'cause we weren't anywhere close to an ice rink, so it'd have to be a drive or a bus into town to go and skate.

Jayne Torvill4:34

That's correct, you're not.

Jayne Torvill5:02

Right.

Presenter5:06

Jane, the first time you were ever on an ice rink then, I remember the first time I was, I went on a date, in fact. I was thirteen and I skittered about like a sort of newborn foal. How were you the first time you were on an ice rink? I went with school. There was a school trip organised when I was about nine, and I remember going on there and actually feeling a sense of balance right away. I think I just went tearing around like young kids do. I mean, I'm sure I fell over a few times, but I just found it all fascinating. I loved it. We have very romantic notions, of course. I mean, you know, when I said that in the introduction, I almost didn't say it. This thing last year, there was a lot of attention when, Chris, I think it was you said, we had a bit of a dabble. We had a bit of a sort of a kiss. Something happened up the back of a bus after training. Did it happen? Did it not happen between the two of you when you were young?

Jayne Torvill5:51

When you were young?

Presenter5:52

I love that word. I like that word. I'm not going to get beyond it with you, and I really don't want to get beyond it. But what intrigued me about when I read about it was that you said it, and Jane said, I don't remember that. I don't remember.

Jayne Torvill5:52

The hack I love that word.

Jayne Torvill5:57

Yeah.

Presenter6:04

to block certain things out and see

Speaker 26:06

Pass it.

Presenter6:06

Faithful memory.

Speaker 26:08

Uh

Presenter6:08

Yeah.

Presenter6:09

The reason that it might be of any significance whatsoever is not because it's what happened when you were young teenagers, but because I wonder if you always knew that what you were pursuing together was far more important than anything that could have been a brief romantic fling as youngsters. Could that be a sign? Yeah, I think that's right, really. When people say, you know, you never got together as a couple off the ice, and we said, you know, we really didn't have time for that or relationships with other people, for that matter, until much later on, because we just had this it was almost unspoken goal that we just wanted to pursue our career. We were quite naïve as well as young people. And honestly, it wasn't about relationships, it was about what we were doing and

Speaker 26:24

Could that be?

Jayne Torvill6:24

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill6:51

Oops.

Presenter6:54

in uh what was becoming our life.

Presenter6:56

And so it was about the skating. That was the passion. When we started skating together, the coach that we had said you have to use every bit of ice time that you can. And there were certain days when we could only skate for half an hour.

Presenter7:10

And you knew that somewhere in Russia people were skating all day. Yes. And so we.

Presenter7:16

We grew up with that notion. When we're choreographing, I have to say that we'll put something together that we haven't discussed it, but she'll know where I'm going and what I'm going to be doing.

Jayne Torvill7:18

But

Presenter7:25

'Cause he'll s he'll just look at me and he'll say

Presenter7:28

What was that move that and I say, Oh, so and so and I know what he's thinking about. So it works well. Yes, it's almost like you have the eye contact, you start the words and the other one goes mhm and you do it.

Jayne Torvill7:34

It works well.

Presenter7:42

It's time for your choice now, Chris. Tell me about the first of your choices today. What are we gonna hear and why have you chosen this? Kill a Queen by Queen. Because Queen was my band and so early on.

Presenter7:52

Queen was a passion and Killer Queen when it when it came out was like this is the best song ever and at that time could recite the whole song so and I'm sure there's many of you out there doing the same thing so don't sing it now though I could do the first I could lip the first one so

Jayne Torvill8:09

Yeah.

Speaker 28:09

Yeah.

Speaker 28:15

She says. Just like Marie Antoinette, a building remedy But Christ John Kennedy and a time when limitation you can't take

Speaker 28:28

Carry on cigarettes, well-versed in any kit Extraordinarily nice She's a killer, queen, got body Dynamite with a laser beam Guarantee to blow your mind

Presenter8:45

That was Queen and Killer Queen, and indeed, Christopher Dean, you did know all of the words to that first verse there, immaculately. Your lip synced along. You were born then in nineteen fifty eight, Chris. Your mum was Mavis, your dad was Colin. As you say, it was just outside Nottinghamshire that you were first brought up. What are your memories of your very early life? My dad was always at work. What did he do? He was a coal miner. We lived in council flats on a mining estate. My friends were in the other council flats around me, and so we were like a little gang.

Presenter9:16

And I remember at summer time, we'd leave at eight o'clock when parents had gone out to work, and we'd be gone all day. I don't know whether we ever ate or drank.

Jayne Torvill9:24

Or try it.

Presenter9:25

I think we must have gone off with sandwiches and that was it. We were off down the wreck playing around and I was very sportive as a kid. I was Active, I was gymnastic, I was in the football team, I was captain of the football team. I was always I was like a monkey climbing around everything. And uh what about you, Jane? You you were an only child as well. Tell me about your earliest memories. My mum had a lot of brothers and sisters, so therefore I had a lot of cousins. And we used to always have parties because they all lived very close by. But yeah, I wasn't I didn't feel lonely as an only child. And Chris, I've read that you your mother left the house when you were only six. What do you remember about that? Because of course as a as a child we only really know so much about what's going on. What did you think had happened?

Presenter10:11

Oh, I was um des remember it being devastating, yeah, yeah. She worked at the co op. She was in the butcher counter and as she went to work I was with her in the back room playing in boxes in the storeroom at the back of the co op.

Speaker 210:15

Devastating.

Presenter10:30

Yeah, then obviously my parents obviously didn't get along and um mum moved out. Um and but the the weird thing is that nobody told me, nobody explained what it was about. It was those days, you know, it's just like, well this is happening and here's your stepmom. Within hours one went out, one came in.

Jayne Torvill10:42

That's about it.

Speaker 210:44

Those days, you know, it's just like

Speaker 210:48

And

Speaker 210:50

Within hours

Presenter10:53

Logistical, I suppose.

Speaker 210:55

Percent.

Presenter10:55

Did you t did you tau obviously Nos at that point you didn't talk? You were six. You were just dealing with the strangeness of it all. Did you talk subsequently to your parents about that? No. You know, time passed so so much and then I've I've never talked about it or analyzed it or judged it. I don't need to know the ins and outs. I was close to my dad, really close to my dad. And obviously you said it was your your your stepmum who'd been a a recreational skater when she was little. She was the one that got me into skating. So your relationship with her was a was a good cordial one? No, no, right. Oh no. She was definitely up and down from early on. Yeah, but I was always a uh the sort of kid that wants to be a pleaser.

Jayne Torvill10:59

The

Speaker 210:59

Uh

Jayne Torvill10:59

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill11:01

Uh

Speaker 311:01

Boom.

Jayne Torvill11:01

Could you

Jayne Torvill11:04

See ya.

Jayne Torvill11:20

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill11:23

So

Jayne Torvill11:26

No, right.

Speaker 211:28

BAH!

Speaker 211:29

I think it's a good idea.

Presenter11:35

make everybody happy and so I felt.

Presenter11:39

If I was doing things if there were problems in the house, I felt it was my problem. It was me that was causing it. And invariably that might have been the case. But I wasn't a naughty boy or anything. I think complicated. As you said to me before, that in recent years I think you choose to just put it in the past and move forward, don't you? So skating for you then was a time of escape and freedom and harmony on the island. As I got to know Chris, you know, I got to know his father and his stepmother. Then I was aware of times when things were weren't happy at home. And it was always with his stepmum that he got into struggle. I think what happened, we bonded. And then that became our family. And we.

Speaker 311:50

I think it

Jayne Torvill11:52

Can't it?

Jayne Torvill12:00

Uh Mm yeah.

Speaker 212:01

Uh

Jayne Torvill12:06

Uh

Speaker 212:06

Harmony.

Jayne Torvill12:07

You said

Speaker 212:07

Uh

Jayne Torvill12:07

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill12:21

Nice job.

Jayne Torvill12:23

And then

Presenter12:27

We get on. We get on really well. We get on better now than we've ever gotten, but that's age and maturity, I think, because when there's difficulty and stuff, we console each other, I think. Yes. Let's have some music then. We're going to give you your third one of the morning. This is a joint choice. Yeah, the Bach Surband. We had a collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma and it was a project that took two years to come together. And it was about the movement of skating, the sound that's been created by his cello, and those two marrying together and capturing it on film. Two years with discussions, thoughts, ideas, and eventually getting to the place of doing it. And that's what made it so rich, I think. The detail that went into it.

Jayne Torvill12:37

Thank you.

Presenter14:20

That was Bach Saraband, the cello suite number six, played there by Yo-Yo Mai.

Presenter14:25

Tell me about uh working together as teenagers then for the first time. You you'd been you'd had success, both of you, degrees of success with with other partners, but when you got together on the ice for the first time, how old would you have been?

Presenter14:37

I think sort of fifteen, sixteen, yeah.

Speaker 314:37

I think sort of

Jayne Torvill14:37

Yeah.

Presenter14:39

And what do you what do you remember about that first encounter on the ice? Early morning, cold, not in the mice ringing. The bells weren't ringing or anything.

Speaker 214:44

Cold bells weren't ringing or anything. This is it! This is the one!

Presenter14:49

It's as eight.

Presenter14:50

This is the way

Speaker 214:52

Uh

Presenter14:52

No, it was like Jane said, it was Nottingham Ice Rink, the old ice rink, was a bit of a barn, wasn't it? With a high high roof and at six o'clock in the morning with just yourself in, you you heard all the rats scurrying around the place as well. Did you know quite quickly, did you think, oh, this this seems to click?

Speaker 215:00

With a high

Speaker 215:01

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill15:07

The place as well.

Presenter15:11

I think we do. We just I mean, I was quietly excited at the chance of having a skating partner again.

Jayne Torvill15:11

Think so.

Speaker 215:12

Yeah.

Presenter15:18

It was about the chance of continuing to skate because we'd

Jayne Torvill15:19

It was a

Jayne Torvill15:21

Yeah.

Presenter15:22

We both found ourselves without a partner. Yeah. And there weren't too many.

Jayne Torvill15:25

Uh

Presenter15:28

There weren't too many guys available. Was he a little size, was he? The blonde prince, yeah. Isn't that where you have a blonde hair? No, not very often.

Jayne Torvill15:30

Was he a little size, was he?

Jayne Torvill15:36

Isn't that what you have? Does she still call her bond hair? No, not very often.

Presenter15:42

Here he is, the blonde prince. And you were at those ages then, 15, 16, where you had to, of course, you were never going to be able to make a living at skating, really. I mean, that was the thing you loved, and it was the thing you spent hours and hours doing every week in your free time. But you had to get a job. So you decided to go into the police force. Was that strongly about that? Or it just seemed to be. I used to be a policeman early on because the one thing.

Jayne Torvill15:44

I'm not sure.

Speaker 215:44

Hey, Rip.

Speaker 215:51

And that was the

Jayne Torvill15:52

Uh

Jayne Torvill15:55

And we Thank you.

Speaker 215:57

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill15:57

So

Jayne Torvill16:00

Did you feel strongly about that or it just seems secure?

Presenter16:05

I I didn't want to do was go down the mines because it was a mining village and almost everybody that left school at fifteen.

Speaker 216:07

Yeah, because I think it's a good thing.

Presenter16:11

Fifteen and a half, we're going down the mine. And was that the advice your dad had given you? Had he said you don't want to go down the mines, son?

Jayne Torvill16:14

Uh

Jayne Torvill16:17

I'm sung.

Presenter16:17

No, you didn't no. But you know what? My dad and my stepmum were big um ballroom dancers. They loved the social ballroom dancing. And for them in their heads this was akin to that.

Jayne Torvill16:23

Love this

Jayne Torvill16:24

And so

Presenter16:28

So, Jane, the blonde prince wanted to be a policeman. What did you want to do? I didn't know what I wanted to do from school. I was a bit disillusioned when I left my first partner and there was like a couple of years single skating, skating by myself, and not being that successful, but I still loved the skating, obviously. And it was just a fate thing that, you know, we partnered each other. I want to take you now in 1977, and you were travelling, I think, to Oberstdorf in Germany. You were skating competitively as a couple, and you were wearing, I understand, hand-knitted zipper cardigans with how did they look? I wish I could see a photograph of this. And a red and white stripe, because th they were, you know, UK Britons cars, and that was our

Jayne Torvill17:00

I wish I could see a photograph.

Jayne Torvill17:07

Cause no

Presenter17:10

And my mom and you

Jayne Torvill17:10

Your stepmom

Presenter17:11

She was an organ.

Presenter17:15

You wouldn't dare to wash them because they they wouldn't fit again afterwards out in this team uniform for us. Warm up on the ice'cause there was no team uniform. The trip to Obesdorf was for an international event competition. That was our first international competition, so it was a big deal for us. How did you get on? Second. Yeah, so not bad.

Jayne Torvill17:20

If not this

Jayne Torvill17:21

Roma

Jayne Torvill17:26

Yeah.

Speaker 217:27

Uh

Jayne Torvill17:32

I suppose.

Presenter17:34

Time now to tell me about your next piece of music. Th this is one that you've chosen, Jane. Tell me about this.

Presenter17:39

This is Read All About It by Emily Sandate. I chose this particular song of hers because it was sung at the Olympics and we were lucky enough to be at the opening ceremony as ambassadors for Team G B.

Speaker 317:50

Come on, come on, let's get the T V and the radio To play our tune again It's about time we had some airplay of our version of events There's no need to be afraid I will sing with you my friends So come on, come on Come on, come on and sing

Presenter18:19

Emily Sandey, and read all about it and memories for you both, Jane Torvald and Christopher Dean, of that wonderful opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympics in London. Let's look back a little then. By 1980, you had come fifth in the Lake Placid Winter Olympics. You were very well established as British champions. You were looking ahead to the most important thing in your calendar, which was the 1984 Sarajevo Winter Olympics.

Presenter18:42

The routines that you were thinking of, and and and to be fair, probably a lot of British people hadn't really paid that much attention to figure skating and ice dancing before that, but things like the Mac and Mabel routine and Barnum, what was the gestation for those? Where did your creative juices start flowing for those routines? I think the record library in Nottingham. We used to go into the radio BBC Radio Record Library because we became friends with the people that worked there. I think some people thought we were employed there because we were all the time. And you know, that was the old days of vinyl.

Jayne Torvill19:07

People that worked there.

Jayne Torvill19:11

You hold all the time.

Presenter19:15

And for us, it was like a treasure trobe. This was an archive of music that we could just go through and find a piece that we loved. And that's where we stumbled across Mac and Mabel. And we wanted a totality. It wasn't edited pieces of tape stuck together. This was already a composition. This was already well thought out and structured. And that was perfect for what we wanted to do. And then we created that visual look on ice. And what response did you get from the people around you? Did they tell you you were mad? Did they support you? Were you aware that you were doing something that not everybody was comfortable with? We were quite righteous by that time, in that we felt once we were sure about something, we were moving forward. And it wasn't, we didn't second guess or question what other people were thinking. That was our bubble that we were living in. You then, by 1981, you were world champions. You were heading towards Sarajevo. The next piece of music that we're going to hear, of course, will be familiar to I'm sure everybody who listens, but it was too long. And that was why you ended up on your knees doing. How dare I even do it in front of you? And I started doing the actions there. I can't believe that. The arms were there. I wanted you to jump off the chair then.

Speaker 320:19

The actions there. I can't like that. The arms were very good. Very good.

Speaker 220:24

Yeah.

Presenter20:26

Oh, moving on. Anyway, you began the now world famous and and well loved routine down on your knees, circling each other like sort of swan like creatures. What do you remember of the actual dance?

Jayne Torvill20:36

Pictures

Presenter20:39

I remember kneeling down to start it and then the actual dance itself.

Presenter20:45

Felt like a dream, or as if you were looking at yourself doing it.

Presenter20:49

I do honestly think we were in some c a kind of

Presenter20:52

Hypnotic, you know when they talk about being in the zone. I think we were in our zone.

Jayne Torvill20:55

I was

Presenter21:55

Ravel's Bolero, played by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted there by Andrei Preven, and, as I say, twenty four million people were watching in Britain alone. When you went home to Nottingham, when you'd come home with the gold, what was the reception? We didn't come home straight away. It was only after the World Championships when we came home.

Presenter22:12

That there was a reception and the city of Nottingham wanted us to go on a Pope Mobile type thing. And we thought, oh, this is quite a bit silly this is, but it was five or six miles driving to Nottingham and the streets were filled, weren't they? It started from my parents' sweet shop. And of course there was a gathering outside, but we expected there to be people at the beginning and the end, but all the way along. It was so endearing that they turned out in their droves. What about the question of the the legacy of that success? Because there you were doing what you were doing and all the tens of millions of people watching it. Have you been surprised in the decades since that Britain has not managed to grow more champions like the two of you?

Jayne Torvill22:18

Pokemobile type thing.

Speaker 222:27

Let's

Speaker 222:35

But

Jayne Torvill22:41

Yeah.

Presenter22:56

Yes, in a word. Yes, it's surprising. An arena was built in Nottingham and it's a a great facility. But there hasn't been the infrastructure and the programmes in place to make this happen yet. Still hopeful that it it's on the way. There's a new chap in charge.

Speaker 222:57

Yeah.

Presenter23:15

And you took that great creative leap of deciding that you were not going to have the chop together uh routines with the chop together music, the splices, you were going to go for something that had one fluid idea. Creatively, nobody really seems to have taken it further than that. We seem to be stuck with that great idea you had and and not much new since. Would that be fair?

Presenter23:35

I think you've got your diplomatic face on, Matt. Yeah, absolutely.

Jayne Torvill23:38

Uh

Speaker 223:38

Yeah.

Presenter23:41

Then we need characters, we need personalities to take that forward for mass audiences to tune into. And that hasn't happened in figure skating at the moment. Actually, as the Olympics are on right now,

Presenter23:55

our figure skaters are out there. And we do have a strong couple at the moment, Nick and Penny. But I think we gained momentum as a persona and what we were doing and it built up around us and

Presenter24:10

I think we were able to take a lead. And it's run a lot more now by the ISU. It's called the International Skating Union. And the rules and regulations, I it doesn't create

Presenter24:23

A routine that you're going to go and be passionate about because it's very technical, so the moves are all the same. There's no time for a long, languid edge that's just about the beauty of the movement, which visually the audience then tune into. There's some strong skaters out there, really powerful, doing amazing stuff, but they can't be creative because of the reasons Chris has just said. They have to be creative in a technical way. Yeah. It's time now for another piece of music then. Jane Torville and Christopher Dean, tell me what we're going to hear next. It's your sixth choice of the morning.

Jayne Torvill24:47

Believe.

Presenter24:56

Still crazy after all these years. Sums us up really, isn't it?

Jayne Torvill24:58

Thumbs us up really, isn't it?

Presenter25:00

We actually skated to it. We choreographed a piece of music in nineteen ninety eight and we were making that our last performance together. Or at least we thought it was going to be. It was just a private moment between us. And it was an emotional moment, obviously, because it was a career and a friendship.

Presenter25:20

That was changing.

Speaker 225:22

I'm not the kind of man

Speaker 225:25

Uh

Jayne Torvill25:25

Protest to socialize.

Jayne Torvill25:29

I seem to lean on o'er familiar ways

Speaker 225:36

Uh

Presenter25:36

Ain't no fool for love songs that whisper in my ears Still crazy

Speaker 225:44

After all these years.

Speaker 225:47

Was still crazy after all.

Presenter25:49

See

Speaker 225:51

B

Presenter25:53

That's Paul Simon, Anne's Still Crazy After All These Years, and memories for you, Jane Torville and Christopher Dean, of that dance that you knew, as you say, marked a different juncture in your life. You were giving up dancing together professionally. I have a confession to make, and it's not an altogether comfortable one. Your dance, Bolero, is not my favourite. It's Let's Face the Music and Dance. You used that dance in 1994. You took advantage of a change in the rules in competition, which allowed you to compete again, even though you'd had this professional spell of ten years. And it seemed to me, when you danced it then in 1994, there was a real lightness, a real joy. And I wondered if it came from the idea that you really knew that you had reached the pinnacle, and there was a sense in which you had nothing to prove. Have I got that completely wrong? Slightly.

Presenter26:41

So tell me the truth. It was a difficult time in the end, wasn't it? We were coming back into the skating world, the amateur skating world, having been away. They invited past sort of winners or anybody who turned professional to come back and compete, really to get past winners there and names, as we talked about, people who had become names and personalities. And they did get what they set out to achieve. From the first competition, the European Championships that we did, we immediately felt that we're not as welcome as we thought. You know, we were all excited to do it. We toured with that routine. We performed it many times, didn't we? Yeah, but there was a lightness about it. Yeah, it was very loose and free and easy.

Jayne Torvill26:45

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill27:01

Target.

Speaker 227:17

We tour

Jayne Torvill27:17

with that routine. We we performed it many times, didn't we?

Presenter27:25

So given the reception you'd had going back to being amateur, I imagine you were both pretty happy to get back to professional life and being in control and doing the routines and the world tours that you did and so on, which filled arenas around the world. Along with this, of course, you were real people having real lives and you've been married now for twenty-four years, is that right? Yes. Thinking. Thinking. And Christopher, you've been married a couple of times and your partner is well, people will be very familiar with your partner because she works on Dancing on Ice with you. She's one of the judges in that. You've both come to parenthood relatively late. I get the feeling that that has been, you know, because of the professional constraints. Would that be fair? Absolutely, yeah. No, timing the life. And also, I mean, for me personally, because we're a partnership and what we do is together, you know, I didn't want to stop what we were doing together to start a family because it I felt like it would make Chris stop before we needed to. And in hindsight, you know, obviously you there are certain ages when you can have children when you can't. And easy for the guy to start a family, but not for the girl in this case.

Jayne Torvill27:33

And yeah.

Jayne Torvill27:45

Yes, yes.

Speaker 227:47

Thank you.

Jayne Torvill27:58

Some of the judges.

Jayne Torvill28:07

Would that be fine?

Jayne Torvill28:10

And also

Presenter28:35

And when you came to start a family, you've spoken once before about the difficulty that you had, and that was as difficult for you to deal with as it would be for any woman. The decision then to adopt, was that difficult or it seemed absolutely a straightforward thing for you to do?

Presenter28:50

It wasn't straightforward. It wasn't something that I'd considered early on because I was continuing to hope that I was going to have a baby. But then when I looked into it further, it was something that I thought, yes, I think I could do this. I knew people that had adopted and I sort of spoke to them. And then, I mean, the whole process is so daunting because, you know, people saying, well, it takes about a year. And when you're desperate to have a child, you think, what, another year? But, you know, I'm glad that we did it. It was worth it.

Presenter29:26

Four children then between you. Do any are any of them terrific skaters? Do you take them out on the ice? Are they naturals? They with a passion don't like it.

Presenter29:35

But your your youngest son could he's very sporty and probably can whiz around the ice rink like you used to do. Yeah, he's one of those naturally talented whatever he picks up, touches, he can do quickly.

Jayne Torvill29:39

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill29:42

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter29:47

Right. Uh what about yours, Jane, then? Have you taken them on the ice? Do they like holding Mummy's hand and enjoying it? They like to go, um, but they don't get the chance very often'cause we don't live near an ice ring and that's Mummy's always working. And I'm yeah, I'm never there anyway. Um but um my son is into football and tennis and my daughter loves gymnastics, so very sporty.

Jayne Torvill29:56

Nice thing. And that's always working.

Presenter30:08

Right, time for some more music then. We're on your seventh. Tell me about this. This is your choice, Chris. In the air tonight, Phil Collins. You know, drums, the rhythm, the percussion. This says it all for me.

Speaker 230:45

In the air.

Presenter30:52

That was Phil Collins and In the Air Tonight. So you continue, Jane and Christopher, to thrill your fans with these routines that you come up with for dancing on ice. I think it's final series. As you come to the end of your on-screen relationship, how do you feel? It's been fantastic. We've loved the process. I really enjoy working in TV. But it was right for us. We felt that it was time, with this being our 30th anniversary since we won the Olympics. And for Chris, he's away from home for that time as well. And, you know, we need a change. That's not to say we won't be skating anymore, because I think we will. But it will be in. Will you? There's not, I mean, there's a time when we're ever going to say we're going to retire again after the last time. Are you not? No. Is there a point at which skating becomes dangerous to do? When a surgeon or the physios say to you, you know, you really need to stop. They're already saying it.

Jayne Torvill31:31

Will you?

Jayne Torvill31:33

You know whatever.

Jayne Torvill31:35

I don't think it's a good idea.

Presenter31:50

The gentleman that looks after my knees saying, you're going to be arthritic for the rest of your life, and there's no good knees out there yet. So don't get the surgery. In a few years, they might invent something. Well, that's what he's saying. There may be something. We still feel fit enough and have the energy to do other things. Fitness is a part of our life every day as well. So, in this great harmonious relationship that I'm about to break up, because you go to different islands on Desert Anders, you don't get to be on the same island. Jane, how practical will you be? Could you start a fire? No, Friday, definitely. I don't think I'd last very long, to be honest. What about you, Chris? Yeah, I think I could survive. You know, Colorado is where I live, is a very outdoor place. Right. It's time for your final then. This is a joint choice.

Speaker 231:57

So then we're going to have a little bit of a few years.

Jayne Torvill32:00

Yeah.

Speaker 232:00

Well, that's what he's saying.

Jayne Torvill32:03

Yeah.

Speaker 232:06

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill32:06

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill32:07

Yeah as well.

Speaker 232:15

Uh

Jayne Torvill32:20

Yeah.

Speaker 232:20

We'll try to

Jayne Torvill32:20

Mike Friday. No, I mean my Friday just

Speaker 232:23

Yeah.

Jayne Torvill32:26

What about you?

Jayne Torvill32:31

Yeah.

Presenter32:36

This is Imagine by John Lennon and it was a piece that we skated to, just absolutely beautiful. And what was quite special is we performed Imagine and another song by John Lennon Revolution as a medley. And we received a letter from Yoko Ono saying how she enjoyed our interpretation of it and she thought that John would have had he been alive.

Jayne Torvill33:02

Imagine there's no heaven.

Jayne Torvill33:08

Yeah.

Speaker 333:08

See if you try.

Speaker 333:14

Bill

Speaker 233:14

Oh hell, below us

Speaker 333:21

Bubba's only sky.

Speaker 333:27

Imagine all the people.

Presenter33:30

Uh

Speaker 233:34

For today

Presenter33:37

That was John Lennon and Imagine. So, Jane Dwarville and Christopher Deanick, it comes to the point where I give you the books. I'll give you two separate piles of books. You both get to take the complete works of Shakespeare and also the Bible to this island, and you each get to take another book. Jane, what are you going to take? A book that I read quite a while ago now, Angela's Ashes, which I found fascinating. Oh, the place that you'll go. Dr. Seuss. Read it to my kids when they were younger.

Jayne Torvill33:56

Uh

Jayne Torvill33:59

Ha ha ha.

Presenter34:01

Okay, you may have that and you're also allowed a luxury.

Jayne Torvill34:01

Uh

Presenter34:04

I think I'd probably take some Joe Malone moisturizer.

Presenter34:08

Right. That's yours then. And what would you like, Christopher? Coffee and digestive biscuits.

Presenter34:13

Coffee and digestive biscuits.

Speaker 234:15

Yeah. They have to go together.

Presenter34:17

You're right, they do. I will give you an endless supply of coffee and digestive biscuits to have on your island. And finally, a track that you would if the waves were to threaten to wash away these discs. Which one would you save, Jane? I would save

Jayne Torvill34:22

Yeah.

Presenter34:31

Chris

Presenter34:32

Right. Bolero then is yours. Jane Torville and Christopher Dean. Thank you both very much for letting us hear you desert Island discs. Thank you.

Jayne Torvill34:38

Thank you.

Presenter35:19

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.