I eat well, but if I’ve been a good boy my wife’ll give me steak
AT the age of 75, Len Goodman still has a spring in his step - all thanks to a backstage chat he once had with Sir Bruce Forsyth when the pair worked together on Strictly Come Dancing.
“He used to say to me, ‘Len, when you get up in the morning, before you do anything, have a stretch’,” he recalls. “Brucie did it all his life. I do circles with my arms, stretch my legs, try to touch my toes. Well, I used to be able to touch my toes, but now it’s more like my calves…
“I find that all adds to my wellbeing,” he says, jumping out of his chair to demonstrate his moves before whipping up his trouser leg to display the scars left by the partial knee replacement he underwent in 2015.
Years of ballroom dancing had left Len plagued by arthritis, eventually leading to him requiring the operation.
“Dancing takes a huge toll on your body – especially Latin,” he says, adding that years of not warming up before rehearsals were especially damaging.
“At the time when I danced, there was never any talk about warming up – you just got on with it. I think it all must have taken a toll on me.”
For years before his knee surgery, the dance pro suffered with pain.
“It creeps up on you,” says Len, who lives in Kent with his second wife Sue, 54.
“But eventually I was in agony. My wife kept saying, ‘You’ve got to go and see the doctor’. And I said, ‘It’ll get better, it’s only an ache’.”
But by the time he was 67, Len could hardly walk. “I’d do 18 holes of golf with my mates,” he recalls. “They’d all be walking along singing a song and I’d have to try and get a buggy. When I did walk, it was agony.”
Finally Len saw his GP, who referred him for an X-ray, which revealed that he would need a partial knee replacement.
Partial replacements are used where only one side of the joint is damaged, and involves less bone being removed.
While these can be done under epidural, Len had a general anaesthetic and admits the operation made him nervous. “These things are scary,” he says. “Being put to sleep is a scary process. And of course when you wake up, you’ve just had your blooming body cut up, so it’s going to be a bit painful.
“But what’s better – a bit of pain and then it’s all gone, or hobbling about for the rest of your life?”
After the replacement, he worked hard to get moving again.
“The surgeon told me that having the operation was only 20% and keeping well afterwards was the other 80%,” he says.
He started by swinging his legs in the swimming pool, and built up the strength in his leg until he could walk.
He says: “As a precaution to help me recover, I started using Flexiseq (a drug-free gel containing deeppenetrating lubricants to help maintain joint health) and whereas the doctor had said it was going to take months before I could play golf again, it was much quicker.
“I started putting
Len with Darcey Bussell on Strictly in 2015 within six weeks of the op because that’s easy-peasy, then a little chipping and gradually built it up.
“I was playing golf within two-and-ahalf months – and walking the course.
“Now every time I get an ache or pain, I rub the old Flexiseq in. I like the fact that it is totally drug-free.”
Three years later, at 70, Len needed decompression surgery on his shoulder too. “I had to have a little bit of bone shaved off my clavicle,” he explains.
Years of having dance partners leaning on his arm had damaged his shoulder. “A lot of it was from giving lessons,” he says. “Especially to begin with – they’re very heavy and they’re pulling down on you, so gradually I got these tears and aches and pains.”
Now Len is thrilled that he had both surgeries. He is incredible sprightly and has walked the mile-and-a-half from London’s Charing Cross Station to the Marylebone hotel where we meet. “I have friends who are slightly older whose lives have been wrecked by rheumatism, so I’m glad I got my problems sorted,” he says. “The doctor was amazed at how quickly I recovered.”
These days he is also careful to eat well. “My wife does a lovely salad and with that we’ll have chicken, or a bit of fish,” he says. “Occasionally, if I’ve been a really good boy, we’ll have steak or something that she cuts up into little slices.”
He plays golf twice a week and goes to the gym too. “I’m the oldest one there,” he chuckles.
And he believes that carrying on working has also kept him feeling young. Although he retired as head judge on Strictly Come Dancing in 2016, Len continues on the US version of the show, Dancing with the Stars. INSPIRATION Brucie with Tess Daly
“Greed is a great motivator, and the money is good,” he admits. “But it’s no good sitting in an armchair watching Homes Under The Hammer. You’ve got to do something. Once you stop working, you never have a day off.
“But for me, one of the joys is I work and then I can potter in the garden and play golf.”
Len believes he has a much better quality of life than his parents did at his age.
“We’re aware of the pitfalls that our parents weren’t,” he says, recalling his childhood in Bethnal Green.
“When I was a kid, everyone smoked. Everyone had a fag in their mouth.
“I smoked because everyone smoked on the television and in films, because it was sophisticated. Now you think,: ‘What a daft thing to do’.”
He is determined to continue being young at heart.
“When you get older, nothing is as good as it used to be,” he says.
“You can’t run as fast or do this or do that. But you’ve got to try and stave off feeling old. I never say that I feel old.”
In fact, Len feels these are halcyon days.
“My initials are LG, and it’s true: life’s good,” he says.
■ Len Goodman is an ambassador for Flexiseq Gel (£11.89 for 30g; Lloyds Pharmacy)