No wonder Katie is so synchronised...
SHE’S made a real splash on the Strictly dance floor – and perhaps these photographs show why.
Our exclusive pictures reveal that Katie Derham first honed her dance skills as a member of her school’s synchronised swimming team.
The snaps show the teenaged Katie performing with team mates during her school summer fete at Cheadle Hulme independent school in Manchester, which Katie attended between 1978 and 1988. The team performed to classical pieces by composers including Vivaldi, and to pop hits including Queen’s Radio Ga Ga, Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody and Simon and Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water. Sarah Davies, who was on the team with Katie, said: ‘The fête day was quite prestigious and this was something everyone wanted to be a part of.
‘The poolside was packed with parents, grandparents and pupils who had come to watch.
‘Over the years we performed to lots and lots of different songs.’
The performances were free to watch but audience members threw coins into the pool which the girls would then dive for.
Katie was reunited with team members for a BBC Radio 4 special which was broadcast during the 2012 Olympic Games – and the former classmates performed a routine in the same pool where they had first learnt their skills. Sarah said: ‘It all came flooding back, even the moves which we hadn’t done since we were 15 or 16.
‘Katie always had great musicality so I am not surprised she is doing so well in Strictly.’
Katie, 45, a former ITV News presenter, was best known as a presenter on BBC Radio 3 and as the face of the BBC Proms before she signed up for Strictly.
But she has emerged as one of the favourites to win the competition after being paired with partner Anton Du Beke.
The couple’s jive and tango routines have been praised by the show’s judges and fans seem enamoured with Katie’s glamorous outfits and long legs.
Katie screamed with delight when she completed her first performance and the audience gave her a standing ovation.
In recent years Du Beke, 49, has been eliminated from the early stages of the competition after being teamed with dance floor duffers such as Ann Widdecombe, Judy Murray and Nancy Dell’Olio,
The show’s judges have joked that for the first time Du Beke has discovered that the competition lasts until Christmas.
Lucy Pearson, Cheadle Hulme School’s current head teacher, who knows Katie, said: ‘For all her self-deprecation, Katie is an intelligent, talented, musical and well co-ordinated person, and it’s great to see her being herself.
‘I don’t think she sees what a lot of other people see, which is her natural effervescence.’
On Tuesday Katie will host a concert featuring more than 200 performers from her school at the Royal Northern College of Music, in aid of Music In Hospitals.