Dancing On Ice stars Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean are, in many ways, a match forged in heaven.
From meeting four decades ago, nailing a perfect score at the Winter Olympics and sharing a much-discussed kiss – to Our Last Dance, which they’re touring later this year, they’ve enjoyed numerous successes.
But it wasn’t always rosy. And among the instigating factors leading to Dean’s success on the rink was the disappearance of his mother, when he was just six years old.
He opened up about the traumatic incident, and the circumstances surrounding it, in a 2014 biography he co-wrote with Jayne, called Our Life On Ice.
Christopher Dean’s mum left when he was six
Dean said that he had a happy childhood. Until he was six, that is.
He grew up near Nottingham with his parents, Colin and Mavis. As a child, he had a bath a week, played outside whenever he wasn’t at school and read comic books.
He was “totally oblivious” to anything happening outside of his family bubble – and reckons a psychologist would say he has blocked out some of his memories from when he was that age, because of what happened.
So, what happened?
One day, his mum and dad took him to see two friends.
Together, the five of them sat in the living room, and an “almighty row” ensued.
“All four of them seemed to be shouting across the room at each other and I was sitting in the middle. Even at six years old I understood what had been going on.”
He gathered that his dad had been having an affair with the woman, and his mum and the woman’s husband had found out about it.
‘I was never given any news as to her whereabouts’
A short while later, after taking him to visit some different friends of hers, Christopher’s mum, Mavis, sat him down and told him: “Christopher, I’m afraid I’m going away.”
He started to cry. Pleaded with her not to go. Held her hand on the walk home, tears streaming down his cheeks. She vanished a week later.
“My mother had just seemed to disappear,” he wrote. “And I was never once given any news as to her whereabouts or wellbeing.”
His dad’s other woman introduced him to ice skating
During an episode of DNA Journeys, which aired in 2022, Christopher visited his family home in Nottingham and shared more insight into that period of his life, which, he said, he had “blocked out”.
“I hadn’t been told that she was going, but I just remember her going,” the gold medallist explained to Jayne during the episode.
He added: “I just remember seeing my mother leaving with a suitcase and getting into a car. I saw her from my bedroom window.”
He added: “And then an hour or so later, another car pulled up and then my stepmum arrived, Betty.
“That was one of the days that I became my own little island, being self-sufficient.”
From the age of 10, his dad and Betty, the woman with whom his dad had the affair in the first place, took him ice skating at Nottingham Ice Stadium.
It was actually Betty who introduced him to ice skating. She had skated in her teen years, and she and his dad Colin liked ballroom dancing, so putting the two together became a no-brainer.
Losing his mum and being an only child made him who he is
It wasn’t until 30 years later that Dancing On Ice judge Christopher Dean was able to instigate regular, reliable contact with his estranged mum.
He never got closure or a full explanation from his dad before he died. And he’s resistant to delve too deep into his family’s history of conflict, lest it taint his memory of his late father.
But losing his mum and being an only child “definitely went some way to making me who I am today”.
Chris’ mum returns
Years later, when he and Jayne started ice dancing together, his mum would surreptitiously watch them compete together from the stands of whichever stadium, but sneak out before he got a chance to talk to her.
“My mum regretted it every single day of her life but we did reconnect,” he said on DNA Journeys.
“She came to watch Dancing On Ice every week. Whatever was happening on the ice, whenever I looked her way, she was only looking at me. I think there was a lot of sorrow that she missed out on so much.”
Dancing On Ice is on Sundays on ITV1 at 6.25pm.
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