Hello and welcome to the heart of it. We are recording from gaddigal Land. Hey, sweetheart, how are you?
How am I? I'm good, Philip. Feel a little out of practice, so I'm enjoying being back in the studio again after being away. You and mis Kath Mahoney tore it up last week.
Oh we had a lovely chat. Yeah, well you were swimming with manta rays in Fiji, Paul Bastard.
It's probably poor wife with me having to go. You know what I did today, This is what I got to do today.
Yet again, really very different lives.
They're getting closer, they're getting closer. Yeah, well, look, well how about the victory. How about the victory this week that we're picking up our caravan properly.
That's exciting. We are excited.
Our Jaco that has been waiting for us is now ready, yes, and we're picking it up. So I am not going Jay Cooing without you.
No, you're not allowed to, and that's part of the contract.
And you to thank you very much.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it's going to be hard not to go somewhere. We have to wait a little bit. That's the only hard thing about that. A little bit but we'll spend weekends just having cups.
Of tea in it for a bit and getting to know it. Yes, because yeah, this is our first time as as caravan people. Look, I know people are going, oh, you guys are going to be gray nomads. Well, one of us is a gray nomad. One of us is what would I say, an intrepid traveler. It was not very not very brave.
One of us is a menopausal nomad.
And not a gray hair in your head.
There's a couple, really, there's a couple. They're hard to find amongst it all.
But no color, no, no.
Runs in the families. You know, my dad is still not gray and he's ninety one.
I was marveling at that. On the weekend. We had coffee with our's dad on the weekend and he's sitting there and he's ninety one years old. He's just walked about a k and a half to get to us. Not a gray hair on his head.
No, well, he's salt and pepper now, but he's not proper gray.
No, I'm great than he is.
Oh yeah, I've been great than here for years.
Oh my god, Well these two are not gray, these two. So we spoke with Jane Torvel and Christopher Dean last year when they were in the country promoting their last dance Australia tour. Well, they're here now, Yes, it's happening. It's happening. It is, so we thought, why not let's replay that chat.
It was such a good chat. They were so lovely.
Yeah, so lovely because they were so open about their career highlights, their gold medal winning performance to Revel's Bolero and the eighty four Winter Olympics, you know, and talked about becoming icons and what that was like.
They've had a fifty year partnership, which is amazing and so then and then they made the transition from sports people to entertainers and now their final tour, which I love it. Their final tour is is because Australia is really really dear to them and the fact that they they've brought it here I think is really special. So yeah, they shared stories from their early days and the challenges of balancing skating with full time jobs and just all
about their approaches to performances. It was such a great chat.
Yeah, And I remember asking them about what it's like training and certainly with Jane putting her trusting in Christopher and traveling. You know, they're traveling at forty fifty an hour at sometimes in the middle of those dances and he's got a fully extended up in the air and then doing spins.
On a little blade of steel.
So brave, So brave. They also touched on their work with underprivileged children and the emotional impact of their of their iconic routines, of those of those moments that they shared with us. We rode those those what would you call routines with them. Yeah, incredible.
There's such a great couple. You can still get your tickets at ticketech dot com dot au. They're at the Brisbane Entertainment Center Saturday fourteenth and Sunday the fifteenth of June.
Then they're in rod Lavor Arena. What a great place that is Wednesday eighteen and Thursday nineteen of June, of course in Melbourne and Kudofs Bank Arena in Sydney Saturday twenty one and twenty two. So they're going.
To be busy there are.
And the amazing thing is they ain't spring chickens right, and they do it and it's still a physical performance for them, and how amazing that they can do it.
Yeah, and they're joined by incredible performers as well, some amazing ice skaters. So have a listen to the chat and hope you enjoy.
Guys also on the production, they will just call us T and D.
I like that. That makes it easier. We'll do that.
Well.
Congratulations on what has been and actually really continues to be an incredible career. Our last dance it says it all. Of course, how are you feeling about the impending retirement? I mean of that particular world for you.
It's kind of weird to think that this time next year we will have been retired already, because we're coming out to Australia in June of next year, and after that we're done, aren't we.
That's it.
We may stay, who knows, we stay, finish the tour and just stay the We'll.
Wrap you up and keep you here very easily, I have no doubt about that.
Will you keep skating?
Is it something you enjoyed doing?
You know?
I choreograph a lot for all skaters, so that may be in my future. But having said that, from our point of view, from skating on a regular basis, because we're always scheduling ourselves for the next event, and right now we're obviously in the throes of getting ready for the tour, which is exciting. We're really excited about what the tour is going to be, and we're excited about going out for the last time. But I'm sure as we get to that final performance, it will become emotional
and sentimental. You know, we've grown up together. We were fifteen, well, we knew each other when we're ten years old. We started skating together when we were fifteen years old, and we've just about spoken to each other every day since then. So I don't think that will change.
No, I mean, that's an incredible partnership, Like obviously you've I mean that outlasted most marriages. I mean, that's like a true that's a childhood friendship that you've managed to maintain in such a beautiful way. Why do you think that is? What is it about each of you that's you've been able to maintain it for this long?
Well, obviously, you know the skating all has always been our passion. Yeah, and you know we both have the same feelings about skating, and we're always we went through all the competitive years up till eighty four, but then beyond that, we were excited to continue to skate and be creative. As Chris said, we formed our own skating company down here in Australia and there were no restrictions. There were no rules of competition or anything, so it
was just like an open door. And having won the Olympics talking of open doors, that opens doors everywhere around for you.
Yeah, I think we transitioned from sports people to entertainers, and then we went into the area of working with artists like Greg Murphy from Sydney and then Yo Yo more famous cellists. So we've just done so many different things. But it's because of that one four minute routine back in nineteen eighty four that gathers this longevity.
It's incredible, it is incredible.
I do want to ask you about the mindset change of from moving from sports people to entertainers, but there are other things I want to cover before that. We want to get just go back to when you were kids. What was do you remember your first impressions of each other.
I just remember seeing Chris at the rink before we skater together, and amongst friends of mine, I called him the Blonde Prince because he had really his blonde now, but it was like really white blonde hair as a youngster. And I said, oh, the blonde prince is here again on top.
If the shoe fits right, he's got to wear that.
The Princess Bride was that that wasn't a thing yet? Was it the Princess Pride? Because I could see why you would be like a Westland you know, right, you guys are princess butter Cup and Wesley right, yeah.
Yeah, yeah? Was it immediate? The chemistry on ice when you when you start You started dancing at fifteen and sixteen? Is that correct?
Together?
Well?
I I was always dancing and Jane had been in another cattle figures skating called pair skating. So at the Nottingham ice rink where we both started skating, she was the Queen Bee because she was a champion.
I was a British champion quite young, mainly because there weren't many pair skating couples two of us.
There was only two in that national tour.
We were Yeah, but then her partner thought that going off to London was the place to be, so he left you. And then the partner that I had had the same impression that she wanted to go to London and the big smoke and make it big down there. So we were worth without partners. And then the coach at the time just suggested that we try out. And we were fifteen years old and quite naive. You know, back in those days there's no social media or anything like that, so you were still a bit naive of
fifteen years old. And she put us together. And remember it was one Thursday morning, wasn't it, and about six am in the morning, and nobody else is there, and the Knotting ice rink is a cold, dark, dank place, and you see the rats scory as you turn the lights on.
So is that at the rats got the stage score.
Yeah, often chasing them off the eyes. Anyway, she put us together and she put us in a dance holder waltz hold, and to begin with we were sort of like really distance apart, but then she like squeezed us together so our hips were against each other and that was kind of awkward for us, and we were like looking around, and then she said, I've just got to get something from a dressing room. So she scootered off the ice and left us there and we didn't move.
We didn't move, We didn't say anything. We were just sort of searching around with our eyes left in the middle of the eyes at six o'clock in the morning. And finally she came back out about five minutes later and said, well, you've passed your first test. You're still here.
The idea is that when you're a dance couple, you dance as close together as you can. Yeah, and that creates a better line and everything. So that's the reason she pushed our hips together because a lot you quite often couples that are starting out dancing, they do.
Tend to do that.
So you could drive a bus.
Between Yeah, so they want you close together, which was a good lesson right from the beginning.
Yeah, you fit, we fit it.
And then a week later she said, are you going to continue skating? And we didn't want to. We were a bit superstitious, and so we thought we said, well, we won't commit to it yet, give it another week, another week, and another week, and after a few months, so we're not sure. And to be honest, I've never agreed to skate with her yet.
Neither maybe for the last about it. Actually you have, because you set up this last two us, so you're kind of going okay, I'll skate with you.
Well, I'll give it just a few more months.
I don't you think that you're those partners that left you and went to London and out sort of they're probably a kicking themselves, but they're probably dining out on that story going. I used to skate with her when I was little.
I got I got her ready for him something like that.
It's strange, isn't it, That sliding door moments? Aren't they left and right? Those decisions and so much fate in your life, but so true, and then there's some just decisions that you maker are just the right one?
Yep?
Was there?
Was there someone that inspired you both to skate? Was there other family members that were skaters?
No, it was just when I was in primary school. I was about sort of eight nine years old. The teacher at the time, because we were lucky we lived in a city in Nottingham that had an ice ring. I think missus McCarthy.
I absolutely do.
Was she decided to organize a trip after school trip for the kids in the class and said, you know, ask your parents permission, and it costs this much and we'll go on Friday evening and it's quite funny now because there's probably a busload of twenty at least children, and she was the only adult. You know how this all the alwis chaperones and all that kind of health and safety, none of that. Ye, So off we went to the ice drink, went on the ice, we had
a group coaching session, and I just loved it. I just loved the feeling of gliding. And I wouldn't say that I was amazing straight away. I had a certain sense of balance. But I was watching other skaters that were doing really good things and much better skaters than me, and I was thinking, I want to do that.
I want to be able to spin. I want to be able to.
And it went from there, and then the coach at the time suggested that I join a Saturday morning club. And then beyond that, I pestered my parents, please couldn't have a lesson?
Mutual lesson?
And they agree to it. And then of course I wanted when you go to the ice rink, you higher skates, and they're usually blue or brown. And I was seeing all these little girls, yeah, these little girls in white skates, and I wanted the white skates. And I said to my parents, please may I have my own skates, And my mum famously said, well, we'll get you a second hand pair because we don't know how long you're going to keep doing that answers.
And she was, well, she certainly ate those words.
You know, I'm thinking Nottingham was not a mecca for ice skating.
Well, you was surprised because at the time when we were skating, there weren't that many rinks around the country. There like eight or nine rinks and not even just happened to be one of them. And it had been since the war or just before the war, I think, And we had a hockey team that was quite popular called the Panthers, and so, yeah, it had it had
a tradition. But when we first started, when we think back at that time, there was at the end of the rink, there was sort of a stage area and there was the big organ and the guy that would play the music and his wife would stand beside him and she was all made up and everything and there and pearls and he'd be playing when she'd turned the pages for him. Of character.
Yeah, so all the all the dance music that was, yeah, it was all a dance interval as they call it so all the waltzes and foxtrots and everything, it was all played.
Live on a Hammond Organs sort of thing.
You know, yeah before when we used to take tests, proficiency tests, and you'd hear the metronyme first, then the music would come in and here we.
Go home, excuse to be out of time.
Really it was when you think back of those days.
All the ice swings had Organs. That was that was how you got the music.
That's fabulous, isn't it funny that I like in America at the baseball like the World Series is on at the moment and it's that whole seventh inning stretch, it's still the going on, and the same in the in a lot of the basketball arenas across America as well. It's the organ gets the more pumped up.
Yeah, when I grew doing ballet, when I was a little girl, we had a we had a missus such I remember she was a hunchback and she sat a posture, yeah, like really like a real, real severe hump. But she was so lovely and she would just smile at all the little girls forest which I forgot about that, But it was so delightful to have live music in a way. You know it all hit the record or hit the iPhone, isn't it?
Absolutely play it out?
You were you? I know obviously famously you were a policeman while you were skating at the same time. Were you did you also? Were you full time skater? Did you have a part time job as not.
A full time job?
But I worked for an insurance company based in the center of Nottingham.
We were true amateurs at the time because you couldn't earn any money from sponsorship sponsorship in the way, yeah, as an amateur, so we had to have and also we couldn't afford not to Our parents couldn't afford to
pay for us, so we still had to work. And outside of work we then fitted the skating in, which was difficult more for Jane because when eventually when I was a policeman, I had shift work, so it could be from six to two, two till ten midnight till eight the next morning, so we fitted skating in around that and Jane had until nine till five. So whenever I was available, then Jane would have to come to the rink. So you were a zombie in the office sometimes.
Yeah, definitely, And I was too.
But after a shift, you know, take off one uniform and then put your skates on them back.
Throwing your party clothes the skating clothes.
That was a mazing. I was always thinking watching the Olympics, and I've always been a fan. I've got to say of the outfits that that the skaters or people where when you get a chance to to do the free skate, like do your classical ones that you have to do, and then you do your free skates or whatever you want to do. Who designed those for you?
Guys?
Did you work on those together or is that folks?
We had a professional designer. He just happened to be involved with skating. He was one of the skating He was a designer as well.
Judges don't get paid, so it's like the amateur skaters, so they job as well.
Yeah, I mean we used to have people that made missus and mine was you see how old we.
Now?
We had wrong gone at once. These guys, that's what they did, yea costume costumers.
Mcguillcadey.
It might come by the end of it anyway, She's this lady just did amazing work. But eventually she started losing A sign came good Yeah, it was sort of a bit feel away around. But we a story about the costumes because we wanted for Ballero they arm braid.
Yes, I was going to say, do you remember what you wore? But it was black with purple like the purple you were in today.
Almost it was like an orchid. That was the thing. It was sort of deep rich purple that got lighter and then there was these little gold epplets that we had sort of the center of the orchid. But it were we wanted it to have sort of a Grecian feel at the same time. But yeah, the the material that we we had to go and source the material, so we'd go down Berwick Street in Lane and.
Go to London for the day from Nottingham because it was a big outing to go and get that fe.
So you'd go and source the material. How much do you want so? And then they cut the designs and fit it and start to shape it. But then when my top was done, it was in the downstairs loo of the costume designers because they every sort of two hours or so, they lifted up an inch.
Yeah, I love that.
At at one point.
Are they in a museum now?
Noting mice arena, which is on the site of the original notting ice.
Rink, is a museum now.
It's a huge building now and they've got a museum part of it and they've got several of our costumes including.
And then just outside the ice rink it's called Blu Square.
Really.
Yeah, we have a tram named after us as well, Tram James says, I'm the back end of the tram.
We get very excited actually, and my kids do it too, Like in Nottingham if we if we're there together, if the tram goes by, is it yours?
Mom? Is it yours? Sometimes?
I found myself in a restaurant in Nottingham with the kids once and I was sitting there and the tram went by, and I went, it's the tram.
I was kind of doing it for them.
Really, Are you guys kind of like uncles an artists to your kids to you know it's in America?
Are they Yeah?
They were, because your kids are in America and so on.
Yeah, you know what kids are like now, they're all about themselves.
Did they go did any of the kids take up I'm skating nothing.
But they've been.
I mean, my kids go, they put seasonal rinks up because I don't live close to an ice rink where I live in the UK, and they put seasonal rinks up at Christmas time and almost every year they've they've gone and now they're go on their own because they're older, don't go with mum, and I'm quite happy about that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But also we didn't want to force the kids skating and then be in the rink for the last part of our life.
Either.
They were successful.
That's true, because it's a that is a full time job when you get in the levels that you were skating at. So of course we have to touch on that. We have to the most famous we have to, I mean, but it's not only the most famous ice dancing performance. I feel like it's just there's so much iconicness, if that's a word around it, because they they almost like bring it out almost every Olympics. They use that as footage.
You know, it's in so many you know, historical terms that they talk about the tall and Dean Bolero performance. Did you were you actually training in Nottingham when you did that? Like did they actually have the organ player playing.
There's a whole process when we started as kids to where we got to and just from the music side, you know that our mentality is we got better. We wanted everything to get better as well. We always wanted to be doing the best we could, whether it was costumes, music, skating, we took everything as wanting it to be at its best. And so musically as we progressed from the maca Mabel that we used to do, which was an overture that we found that was perfect and it was a silent
movie theme that we did. But then we went to Barnum because we wanted to do a circus theme and then we met Michael Crawford and helped us with performance and acting, and then he then introduced us to the musicians and the musicians agreed to give their time and record a bespoke again overture of they used.
A different arrangement to their normal overtures, so it fitted into the four minutes that we allowus.
Skating used to be when it used to be two reel to reels, a real to reel and you would raise the blade music and stick them together. Nowadaysters and everything, it is amazing what you can do. But when we got to Billerro, obviously we couldn't go back from having the music especially played for us that so Ballero. We searched around for a blero that was four minutes long and clearly the rhythm one because it's sixteen to eighteen
minutes long before orchestral piece. But we wanted the same effect from that small intimate start to that crescendo that finishes. And so we then approached an arranger and he sat down and dissected it and he said, it sounds a simple tune, but it's really complex. And he said, I can only get it down to four minutes and twenty
eight seconds. And our limit was either it should be four minutes, but you've got a ten seconds lea away yea, so three fifty or four ten, and so we thought about it and then we got the rule book out and it said that the stopwatch starts when you begin to skate. So we started on our knees and James blade touched the ice at four minutes ten seconds.
You can't technic.
We stayed until your blades on the ice.
Which which was white, I mean the beginning of it.
Yeah, so innovative.
We've never seen anything like that before.
And it came out of necessity.
Ah, so I mean again, and you talked about fate earlier on, but like that just that's that's small little.
Well, it just because, as Chris said, we wanted to start small and intimate and because we had to be on our knees and close together. It worked for the storyline anyway.
Yeah, is that something like Michael Crawford taught you or you said, if you want to draw an audience and start small like that?
So your really well the music suggested that. But he was very performance oriented, you know, he's very animated. He spoke to you and when it was present and when he was talking about Barnum and some of the tricks he taught us some of the tricks that they did on stage. Yes, there's one where you wrap your legs around and go between your legs and on the other side that they did on the stage, and the effect of mind juggling and stuff like that, which we then
were able to incorporate into the routine. But yeah, it was all about projection.
Yeah, he said, if you don't if you don't believe it, like if if you don't believe you're juggling, the audience went for sure, and it was great advice for us moving forward is.
He in the audience in Sara Jovo when you dance.
We worked with Michael the previous year when we were doing which was three, but he came to the performance there, right, who came up.
With that finale, that final fling in that bolo dance, the sliding that when you're through there.
Yeah, well, there's there's two parts to the Olympics. We did something called the passably.
Passa Doug that's the one I'm thinking, that's the one that you think.
That's what I'm thinking, lying on the floor for both times.
Yeahs around a bit.
We looked at Matadors. Yeah, looked at because in a Pasadobilian actual fact that the lady is the cape in the ball. And so if you watch what we did, she was always draped around me like a caper. I was holding her as if she was the cape, and it's always sort of that sweeping gesture to the ball at the end where you just lay down the cape.
That's it again.
We had the same costume designer who came up with that great idea of the big sleeves that made me look look.
Like a cape.
It was kind of weird.
Because most of the dance I was like that, so I was cape.
Yeah, you're a good looking capeer.
Did you ever just want to skate on your own at that top level?
Or my stepmother and father they used to do social dancing. They go out and social dance, and right from the beginning they encouraged me to do dancing. And when I first started, I just wanted to speed around the rinks as as they could, and they'd be saying, don't become don't become a speed skater or a hockey skate, think about dancing, and so I went straight into the dance.
I do remember them when I think the first time I got a pair of skates for Christmas, and I lived out in the countryside and we couldn't just get into an ice rink. So for the first two weeks I walked around the house in my skates. I just wanted to skate, dying to skate, and eventually, when when I got to the ice rink, I launched onto the ice and I think I must have fallen over in
excess of two hundred times. So it wasn't sort of a natural thing or look, I can skate, but I eventually mastered it and fell down less.
You come to the end of the performance, crowd goes wild. Did you know in that moment you clinched the goal, did you have that sense?
Well, you know, it was ours to lose in place before we started, so there was a lot of pressure in that.
We were champions the previous three ye right, yeah, So the Olympics is.
The end of yeah, yeah, yeah.
So when we'd finished, we just wanted to skate well because we'd done so many rehearsals in training, we'd run through the whole thing. We'd run through the whole thing during the Olympics when we had our practice sessions, and we thought, if if we don't skate this well, it will be so unlucky, yeah, and unfortunate, and we felt that we couldn't have skated it any better for us. There weren't any mistakes or anything, so just that in
itself was was a relief at the end. And then you know, there was a while before the marks were going to come up, and then when they did, well, we were still collecting flowers, weren't we And we kind of looked up because we heard a roar from the crowd, and obviously it's because we've got the sixes in.
Yeah, it's one of those routines though that it can be. We were in a bubble and so we were just performing it. But when we watched it back, the room was silent, which was great. It wasn't one of those performances where everywhere you do.
A trick in the clap. We didn't want that anyway, did we know?
We wanted to be engaging. People were withers as we were skating.
And sort of threw it away before. But I was saying when you fit together, but in that in when you two danced together, there was such a synergy between you both that there was no It was like we were in our bubble watching it and to make any noise or that was like no, no, shut up, stop.
Clapping, just watch.
In a way, yeah, beautifully together.
We felt like people were watching something very private.
Absolutely a moment.
How did you stay grounded through that period.
Of care and telling your mom after your first won the World champions.
Oh yeah, when I came back from the first World Championships in nineteen eighty one. My parents I grew up working class background. My parents, you know, they worked their whole lives and everything eventually ran a news agent shop, which for them it was a big deal because it was a business, you know. Anyway, I came back from the World Championships and I said, oh, Mom, we won't this.
She obviously knew we wan't. I said, Mom, it's great, we want She said, well, yeah, well there's always someone better than you though.
Oh, I went, well, not in this moment.
They're always grounded it.
And then I kind of thought about it.
After, because well, yeah, she's right, because there might be, you know, for someone coming up.
I mean, it's that working class thing that also if you'd have when you used to borrow some money for you from your mom for like a five or ten pounds or something, right, two people right a little and told you this is how much you owe me.
Yeah, oh yeah.
I also had to pay everything, and if I if I snuck into the sweet shop and took a few sweets out of the jaw, I had to put money in the till because it had to balance.
Did you ever have to pay back for the secondhand pair of skates that she bought?
No, I didn't know. I got away with that. Yeah, I got away with that one.
You've been known for your creativity, obviously, and pushing the boundaries in ice dancing. Do you remember that. Was there ever a crazy, wild, unconventional idea or performance that you actually never got to perform. Was there something that you wanted to, like, let's do a trampoline in the middle of the eyes.
I don't think so.
I think we've had crazy ideas and we've managed to make them pull them off work.
Yeah. One of the rewarding things that we did we made a documentary and we shut it in Alaska.
Yes, I wanted to ask you about.
Because most of our time on the ice it's in a building. It's manufactured contained. You know, it's frozen pipes that are underlane with underlining under the ice, with free arm going through it, and you spray over it and it creates ice.
Plus you got a fence around the outside the barrier.
And but we went to Alaska and we skated the ballero on a lake, open, natural lake, and the backdrop wasn't the rink, it wasn't the mountains a video screen. It was the mountains and all the beautiful pine trees and it was natural and for and there was nobody there. There was not an audience. There was a camera and that was so rewarding to be able to.
It was just that.
Adding that because we always say that when you skate you've got this sense of freedom and flying almost and have been able to do it outdoors without any barriers and restrictions. It was I don't know, it's quite an emotional feeling because it's something we never thought we'd be able to.
Also, we felt quite small, yeah, because it was the vastness of the lake, because.
There was a drone as well, so you could see from the top. You know how small we were compared to the lake and everything.
So I wish I could remember his name. There's someone I follow on Instagram. He he's Canadian and he was he never won a medal or anything in the Olympics, but he was he was a professional or is a professional skater. But what he does all of his Instagram post is him ice skating doing the wild.
Yes, he's doing our show.
Was watching you to see if you had any I have to.
Watch it like makes me want to cry because the freedom he has when he skates and you're just the way that camera follows him around and it's just I think I've sent you a couple of his posts. They are just it's just magic.
We've never met him, have we You've spoken to him now, but that's how Chris came across him from the post.
You go, yeah, yeah, we're excited with some of the cast that.
We exactly does the back he just he injured his knee a little bit, that's right. But apparently it was the hottest summer in Alaska? Was that right when you were searching for that ice exactly?
Yeah, we were. I mean it had this sort of undercurrent talking about climate change as well, and we flew up onto the glaciers and walked around, but you could see how much it was declining from where it used to be and what it was where it was. Then, Yeah, you know, mice ice may be gone before we know it.
Well, the first lake that they had identified for is the crew and everything. When we got to it, it wasn't going to be frozen enough. You know, so many inches they need, and obviously.
We did find health and safety the free what was the terminology that.
Skating?
We had these special blazes that were like this long, and we're on one lake and we just could go for miles.
And never stopped, never go around the corner.
Yeah, and then we did something unique as well that Jane. I. They we cut a hole and I went in in a dry suit, scupa diving Jane skated above me.
Skatered over the top of him.
Essentially.
Oh, I like doing some risky things.
Chris is the dare devil.
I would have preferred to be.
You tell me, did the dry I mean obviously you stay dry, but you still get really cold, though, don't you.
You did it well, yeah, I mean they had a little tent and they had a heat in it, but yeah, it was cold.
Well, when we did the actual skate, the final skate, we had a tent because it's in the middle of nowhere, so there's no dressing room. We had a tent with heaters in and we literally we did our warming up, went back into the tent, run back house again and then did the performance and several times.
Yeah, several times.
But it was, you know, having that tent there to warm up because it was I don't know minus whatever it was, but it was very, very cold.
Yeah, but it was just an experience, yeah, something and outside the boundary too, is incredible.
It just as you're talking about that remind me of that movie Papillon with Dustin Hoffman and Steve McQueen and Steve McQueen's in prison and he can only work walk five steps before he hits the wall. And then when he finally gets out of his prison cell, he walks six and falls over.
Yeah, he six stem.
It's like, wow, So here you guys are outside of the dimensions of what you're used to be doing. You're in the open, open terrain.
Amazing.
Must have been very liberating.
And another funny story from that when we were going to Fairfax. So we were in Anchorage and we were going up to Fairfax on the train and I think it was like a ten hour trainer.
Yeah, it's a famous train journey that people that connected two.
And on the way we were looking we were thinking that we see ice on the way, and the conductor said, well just stop the train, just let me got off and we shoved some ice out of the way and we did a little skate and all the passengers that he was watching, and then we got back on and carried on. It's one of those trains where people.
That live off grid, off gridge was just coming.
Wave down and the train will stop and they get on.
There's no actual station really to the end, it's.
Really imagine it being on mentor being a passenger on that trying.
That who are those two idiots? A little skating?
You did another documentary I wanted to ask you about ice rink on the estate. Can you tell us a little bit about that one as well?
That was quite special that it was working with underprivileged children in Nottingham. Nottingham called the Saint Anne's Area, which was actually quite close to the rink, and it was about giving opportunity for kids that would never have the opportunity to have the money on go skating, et cetera. So we worked with them and they couldn't skate or anything, and we took them to the rink and we taught them things. Then as a group we kind of put
together a performance. It was going to be a one night performance for all the families in an outdooring.
Wasn't it on the estate.
But it's quite interesting that the young kids from this state were quite feral.
Wet.
I don't know how many the first day came and there was certain adults that brought them along and then we said, right, so rehearsal tomorrow is at X time, ten o'clock in the morning, whatever it was, and only half of them turn up, and then the next day you get a different half, and so you don't get
everybody at the same time. And right we were just horrified because having put together many shows, the professionals are there and they're looking at you right on time and you say do this, And I know they can actually skate, but it's just that discipline and they certainly didn't have that, and you know, they've never grown up in a normal sort of situation. There was a lot of problems there, but some of them were really quite endearing.
Weren't They overcome it by the end, And we did do a show. Yeah, And it was one of those things that actually on the dress rehearsal and I think it was was it in November time? It teamed down.
Oh that's right, Yeah, it ruins the ice and everything.
Oh no, But then the day of the actual performance it was fine.
It was put the Zambia.
But I wondered what I wondered. I mean, that's such a gift for those kids to have had the experience of being both with you and like sort of feeling like they mattered for that time.
You know, and they were given their own skates as well. We just thought, you know, if if two of them carry on skating, or you know, even if they didn't enjoy it, they think, well skating is not for me, but maybe I'll try this.
Yeah, exactly.
It's all about the experience.
The experience, and we you know, we took some of the kids because we had to go and find money for it, so we went around to local businesses, cap in hand kind of thing we had made. The kids were the ones that were asking for the support. So it's another side of things of if you determined to do something, you can make something happen.
Yep. Action question.
We all go through crises of confidence and you guys were held up on a pedestal. How would you deal with those moments during your career and subsequently.
Well, I think one of the times you had an injury when we were competing, when we were competing and as a moment a crisis and that we were generally, each year you do the European Championships, which is a precursor to the World Championships because most of the best skaters are European and Russian. And this was nineteen eighty three, and nineteen eighty three was the pre year before the Olympics, and so nineteen eighty three was a big year, so
it was important to win the World Championships. Going into the following year for the Olympics and the European Championships, we had a big forward, didn't we.
Yeah, we were training the barn and routine and we fell and I ended up fracturing my shoulder and so we literally had to pull out the European Championships. And for us, that's the first time we'd had to miss a big competition. We've done all our British Championships, European World and as Chris said, it was the year before the Olympic year.
So it was letting up competitors.
In someone else was going to win that Europeans.
It wasn't going to be usure.
So coming back from that, we had about seven or eight weeks before the World Championships and so we just, you know, we had to get over the the injury better every night as a fracture, so we had to come to terms with that and then when it was time to get back on the ice, the process of getting back was emotional. Yeah, difficult, but as a team, I think you have to come together and work together
and understand each other what we need to do. And we realized that we had to be possibly bigger and better motter than ever than ever when we went to the World Championships some eight weeks later to say to everybody, we're still here.
We're still still had lots of tape on my shoulder blade, but we always made sure it was hidden so whenever the doctor did it, it was in private, like in my room or something, not in the dressing room in the changing room. So it was yeah, because a shoulder injury like that, if you fractually shoulder blade, you can't put it in plaster, you can't do anything. It just tess to heal and there's not a lot of blood
supply to that area. So I had to be really really careful not to put it back by training too much or doing too much with it at first. But as Christian, you know, we had an extra several weeks of training. I remember we couldn't bear to watch the European Championships on the television. No, we couldn't because it
was emotional for us, like we shouldn't be there. But having said that, when we did get ready to go to the World Championships, we felt more than trained, more than ready, because we'd had those extra weeks.
I think that, I think those moments of crisis actually makes you even more determined and stronger sure to want to be if you've got the passion and the desire.
I think it's so brave as well. I mean, particularly for you, Jane, you know the amount that you're being thrown about, tossed about, I mean, I know it takes bravery to do that as well for the man you've got like literally the you know, the woman's hands, you know, life in the hands.
Chris dropped her and she broke her shoulder. That's what we've just been talking about the last three minutes.
Said that Jane has broken my nose.
I've landed on top of him a few times.
Laid through my head. Yeah, I've squashed the disc.
So I interrupted your question.
No, I was just saying, it's like there's so much bravery that has to be involved, and then to get back on the ice after, you know, and do that same routine again when.
They hurts, when you fall on ice, and if you're going it's speed that you two are Yeah, yeah, how.
Would you both like to be remembered in the world of figure skating.
We'll just be remembered that yeah.
Yeah, just being you know, like you said, when you think of figure skating, certainly here in Australia, most people go oh, tavel and.
Deed they do.
And so it's the memory of yeah, yeah, yeah, that's sort of our legacy.
Yeah, and that the memory has not dimmed as well, Like it's just yeah, it's very very vivid for all of us who got to see it, and you know, and in ensuing years as well.
So I brought this up the other day on the golf course with my mates. I said, we're we're interviewing Tuval and Dean on our podcast next week. Anyone got questions? I can't ask you any of the questions, but they all were like, that's amazing, that was so good. Can you just tell us what's happening in twenty twenty five, What tells us a bit more about the tour and what we can expect.
Well, we want to celebrate our career and this is our last dance, so we want to tell the story that you know about our life and how we got to where we are starting from, you know, as kids, when we started out winning our first European championships with Macca Mabel, which was quite a departure from the routines we've been doing before and the progression there, and because we've got a company of amazing professional skaters with us, like for instance, Maca Mabel is based around the Silent
movie theme, so we're doing we're expanding that from the four minute team to a big.
Everybody share a production number that comes our number, so it's sort of a down memory lane for us, and there'll be audio visual stuff, will be chatting on the ice as well as skating, so it's an evening were than our story, but we're being accompanied by some amazing skaters, yes, clearly.
And so many of your shows are already sold out. I know there are tickets available to some, but already yeah, you know, that's how much we love you are already like getting tickets.
To this one, hope.
So and just okay, so how old were you in about and I need to know the details in nineteen eighty four you're in your twenty twenties. Yeah, okay, so we do the math now, I'm not doing the math but I'm just going We've got you guys.
Pasted physically right.
You've got what supplements are you taking?
What do you do to stay supple and strong?
You know, you just have to keep working. We're doing it. You know, we're in the gym, keep skating, you watch what you eat. And I think it's the continuity that we just have kept skating. Okay, we're in the ice rink all the time. You know, cold ice rinks are not.
So yeah, because you look amazing. Spent a long time inside.
This is We love to ask just a question to end the show with. Could you describe each other in one word?
Silence? Hello, darkness, male. I don't know about one word, but three, I've got three.
Okay.
My best friend, see, I knew he was going to say that that was mine, that was going to be mine.
So beautiful, Oh my gosh, is just gorgeous. Thank you so much for your time. We just wish you all the best with the tour. I know it's going to be amazing, but it's just been a real honor.
To get to speak with you.
By thank you lovely speaking with you too.
Thank you