THIS IS THE HAPPIEST I’VE EVER BEEN

As fans will know, Shirley recently decided to remove the breast implants she’d had done 17 years ago after she had a mammogram and was told it was impossible to see what was happening behind them. With her mother and aunt having had cancer, this was not a state of affairs she could sanction any longer.

Most people would take six to eight weeks off after this surgical procedure, but

Shirley was back in her chair at

Strictly four days later.

The most touching part of her story, though, is the fact that her actor boyfriend Danny Taylor drove her to the hospital, then waited for her to come round. ‘When I came round and saw him there, there was just this feeling of relief, just to see him holding my hand. I’m not used to that at all.’ She met Danny, who’s 47, last Christmas when they were both appearing in pantomime. Shirley (pictured, inset, with Danny) was instantly smitten, he less so. ‘I fell in love with him, but not him with me to start with. So we just became good friends, until he declared he was in love with me too.’ He’d never watched an episode of Strictly so didn’t know who Shirley was, and was also coming out of a long relationship with the mother of his eight-year-old son. So is marriage really on the cards? ‘I was against it — until I met him, but I’m certainly not in a position of never-again now. But I’ve been married twice and he hasn’t been married at all, so it would be a lot more about whether he wanted it.’