‘ROBIN WINDSOR WAS KINDEST SUPPORTER’
STRICTLY Come Dancing professional Robin Windsor, who died tragically young in February, was a passionate champion of Anna’s charity. The popular star, found dead in a London hotel, originally met Anna when they were paired together on BBC One’s The People’s Strictly for Comic Relief in 2015.
Anna was chosen as one of six “inspirational but everyday heroes” from over 11,000 nominees. The pair trained for three months before dancing the Charleston in front of 11 million TV viewers.
They became firm friends. “We were chatting on WhatsApp at the end of January,” she says sadly. “Normally he’d send me a voice message or a text, but this time he just kept responding with a heart. I’m heartbroken he has gone. I was driving my son to college when I heard and I cried – it really knocked me for six.”
Anna said that Robin had discussed his depression with her and also his disappointment at leaving Strictly.
“He was a bit gutted that he didn’t get called back after he had a back injury,” she recalls. “He went back to dancing with the People’s Strictly with me and he thought, because of that, he would be going back on Strictly. But they never called him.”
Robin and Anna had planned to meet up this month at her Autism Dance Day, where he had offered to teach routines to parents and carers and help raise funds for the charity. “We’d talked about doing a Strictly Autism event as well,” Anna recalls.
Robin was also a regular at Anna’s annual Autism’s Got Talent show.
She says: “I knew him for nine years. He was the nicest, kindest, most genuine man you could imagine. Whatever he could do to help you, he would do. He was great with everyone he met.”