Eight things we learned from Shirley Ballas's Desert Island Discs

Shirley Ballas, the head judge on the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, discovered ballroom dancing at the age of seven, coming across a class at her local church hall. It quickly became her life, and by the age of 24 she was ranked world number one. She remains the only woman in history to win the British Open to the World Professional Latin Championships with two different partners and her dancing career lasted more than two decades. She joined the Strictly team in 2017.

Here's what we learned from her Desert Island Discs...

1. After every Strictly show, Shirley’s mum makes her explain her judgements and comments

Shirley’s mum is a keen Strictly fan – and like every viewer, she has her own opinions about the dancers, as Shirley reveals: “She sits there in her little armchair watching… and when I get home on a Saturday evening at midnight, she’s there with her arms folded, looking at me: ‘Now I thought so and so and so and so, and you marked so and so and so, and so explain to me so I can understand.’”

Shirley says that she always points out that the judges see much more than the viewers at home: “When you're watching the programme, you might see from the waist upwards or overhead shots. When I'm in the studio I can see all the feet - so we are watching different things… I sometimes have to watch a heel lead that is unacceptable, [so] I have to get up and show my mother ‘Well, I saw this...’ and she says ‘Well then I guess you know best!’”

2. Her first disc takes her back to her first appearance on Strictly

When Shirley joined Strictly, the executive producer wanted her to make a big impact from the very first moment she appeared on the screen:

“I remember her saying to me,” recounts Shirley, “’I think we're going to have to put you in a Latin dress, Shirley, and a pair of high heels, and you're going to have to get there and do the samba!’”

“I just looked at her and said, ‘I haven't had a pair of shoes on since 1995. I don't even know if I can still balance in them.’”

“She said, ‘You’ve just got to trust me.’ So I did! I walked around in the high heels – hardest thing I ever did – in a beautiful red dress that wardrobe had made for me. I was very, very nervous. And I remember perspiring and it was running down my back and my knees were shaking, but somehow the minute the lights go on: ‘Lights, camera action, music!’ and off I went.”

Shirley danced to Get Lucky, written and performed by French electronic duo Daft Punk featuring American musicians Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers, and it’s her first choice for the desert island. You can see Shirley’s samba on the BBC Strictly Come Dancing YouTube channel.

3. Shirley’s mum worked very hard to pay for dance classes and more

After her first glimpse of ballroom dancing at the age of seven, Shirley soon became a keen competitive dancer, and needed lessons and the right shoes and clothes. To pay for all this, her mother – who was raising Shirley and her brother David on her own – took a wide range of different jobs. “She used to work at Cadbury’s on the cakes, but she'd get a couple of pounds more if she qualified as a forklift truck driver. Now she's five feet tall, barely weighs seven stone, and I thought she’s never going to get that job. And boy oh boy, she qualified for that job.”

“I remember her being a bunny girl, I remember her making sales, babysitting, working in nightclubs. I mean, she did everything she could to give me an opportunity to be able to dance. And for that, I’ll always be grateful… I never lost a little skirt or a top because I knew my mum worked so hard to get those.”

And her mum inspires her second choice for the desert island: “When my mum was a young girl, this was her favourite song. When she was working in night clubs and it came on, she would stop serving the drinks and dance with her best friend, Mavis. The two of them love this song.”

The song is Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire.

4. By the age of 23 Shirley was a champion - but it wasn’t enough

Dance dominated Shirley’s teenage years, with countless hours of practice: she moved away from home and her mother at the age 14 so that she could rehearse more with her dance partner.

And after a switch of dance partners, in 1983 Shirley and her partner won the British Open to the World Professional Latin Championships and were ranked number one in the world the next year - but success wasn’t all that she’d hoped it would be.

“As I stood there with that trophy, I was empty,” says Shirley. “There was something in my life that was missing and I didn't know what it was... I started to complain a little bit more with Sammy [Stopford, her dance partner and husband], but didn't really know what I was complaining about. But there was something missing in my life.”

Sammy and Shirley had married when Shirley was 19 and it was as much a marriage centred on their shared passion for dance rather than necessarily for each other.

“I cared about Sammy a lot. We had grown up together to be these top professionals but I think that I missed fun! Going out, having a holiday, meals out, laughter – even though I had a solid partner, one that would never cheat on me, one that would be there for me. He was that kind of character, but something in the passion department was definitely missing...”

5. Shirley found that missing something in Canada

And his name was Corky Ballas, an amateur dancer from Texas. Shirley moved to Houston and was welcomed by Corky’s family and his five siblings and parents. Corky’s father George invented the first string garden trimmer, called the Weed Eater and the family were pretty well off.

“Corky had this charm... He was a chef and he worked in his father’s hotel” says Shirley who was keen to carry on dancing at the highest level. “I thought to myself, Sammy trained me, perhaps I could do it the same for Corky. Exactly like we see on our Strictly Come Dancing.”

“We started out at rock bottom. People were laughing at me, you know, she's left our country, Great Britain. She's dancing with a boy that's got two left feet, basically, and they were really mean to Corky. He taught me again to be more resilient and bulletproof.”

In the end Shirley was proven right.

"From there it went from strength to strength. We became 10-times United States, Latin American champions.”

It took Shirley a long time to learn to love her fifth disc – a grunge classic

“I didn't like the song at first, but Mark [her son] would often take me into his bedroom, strumming on his guitar, [saying] ‘You know, this is the way to go, Mum!’” Shirley recalls. “And then after several years of it, I thought, 'Oh my goodness, that's a great paso doble!”

The song is Nirvana’s Smells like Teen Spirit.

6. Shirley retired at the top - but life took a dark turn

In 1996 Shirley retired from competitive dancing, feeling that she had achieved everything she’d set out to do - but there was personal tragedy ahead. In 2003 Shirley’s brother David took his own life unexpectedly:

“David didn't leave a letter... Did we see the signs and what were the signs? Now that I'm more into men's mental health and I work a lot for CALM: Campaign Against Living Miserably, I know the signs now more or less, but back then I didn't really know too much.”

“He was my cheerleader and I miss that. We spoke every day at four o’clock. And it never goes away. And I wonder sometimes, if I've truly grieved.”

David died in December. Since his death Christmas has often been a very muted affair for Shirley and her mother, but as the years have passed they now feel that they should celebrate this time of year:

“My mum was like, do we really need to put up Christmas trimmings every year? And I [say] ‘yes, we're going to put a tree up. We'll have some lights. We're going to have some joy and we're going to have David. We'll do all our things and set the table for him as well. We set a place for David – he’s very much part of the memory.’”

7. Shirley’s sixth disc is a tribute to David

“This is probably going to be the hardest track and I think even now I'm going to get emotional,” Shirley tells Lauren. “And it was my brother's favourite song and he used to have me samba all around the living room while we'd have the song on. It was the last track that he cut for me on a CD before he died.”

The song is You To Me Are Everything by The Real Thing.

8. Her job on Strictly came at just the right time

In the years before her big television break, Shirley says she experienced many years of bullying from peers in the world of dance:

“I was teaching the top couples in the world and... [there were] threats going to certain couples, saying there's nine of us and one of her, if you train with her, we're going to make sure you don't make it in the industry. Men and women stopping me judging.”

“There was an awful lot of things going on like that for no particular reason, other than they didn't want a woman in any high places and that's how I felt. That's my perspective on it.”

“Fortunately something aligned and I got the job on Strictly. So thank you very much to all the bullies in my industry - and you know who you are and everybody in my industry knows who they are. Thank you, because you gave me a platform and a job that I sincerely love and adore.”