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 (he was appearing on stage in the north of England but came down to London specifically to take her), 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 a Jack And The Beanstalk pantomime in Liverpool. Shirley (pictured, inset, with Danny) was headlining the show as Mother Nature and Danny played the villain, Fleshcreep. She 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 that he was in love with me too. He took his time.’

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 eightyear-old son.

Since Shirley has been married twice, it might have seemed complicated, but there’s nothing complicated about the grin on her face. So has he swept her off her feet? ‘Oh, off my feet, down the river, off into the sunset. I don’t know how to say it, other than it’s the happiest I’ve ever been.’

So is marriage really on the cards? Hasn’t she said she would never get hitched again? ‘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.’