The names of Torvill and Dean may have been inextricably linked for over half a century but that did not stop minor panic setting in when the Palace came calling.
Britain’s enduring ice dance pair have been awarded a damehood and a knighthood in the New Year Honours, for services to their sport and to voluntary service.
But Dame Jayne and Sir Christopher admitted they feared their fortunes may have finally diverged after having to endure an anxious wait for confirmation that their latest accolade would also be bestowed in unison.
“I’d just come back from holiday and went to the post box, and then I saw this letter,” explained Dame Jayne. “It said personal, confidential. I quickly went back into the house and opened it, and I really couldn’t believe it. My husband wasn’t at home, so I called him, and then I was calling Chris.”
Sir Christopher, however, had to be a little more patient.
“I was just getting up, still in the PJs,” he told the Press Association. “Jayne said, ‘go to the letterbox’. I opened it up and had a look, and the letterbox was bare.”
It took three long days before the duo, who thrilled millions of television viewers with their skate-perfect rendition of Ravel’s ‘Bolero’ to win Olympic gold at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, could finally celebrate together.
“It was like a tidal wave hit me,” added Sir Christopher. “It’s such an amazing award to receive this, an honour, and we’re really humbled by it.
“We’ve been together for 50 years and I think in that time we’ve created this body of work and skated and performed and entertained over all that time, and we’ve worked with a lot of charities as well with our skating.
“Just to receive this honour is wonderful and humbling at the same time.”
The pair’s performance in Sarajevo, which yielded a string of perfect sixes on the Zetra Stadium scoreboard, remains one of the nation’s most enduring Olympic moments, and created stars who would stay in the spotlight for decades.
Four-time world champions, Torvill and Dean would return to the Olympics after a 10-year absence in Lillehammer in 1994, when they added a bronze medal.
But they were already set on a course that would capitalise on the sport’s surging transition to showbusiness which they had done more than anybody to facilitate, becoming choreographers and later judges on ITV’s ‘Dancing on Ice’.
Torvill and Dean returned to Sarajevo on a number of occasions, most notably in 2024, when they marked the 40th anniversary of their famous triumph by skating once again to the ‘Bolero’ in the hall that had been rebuilt after the Bosnian war.
Torvill and Dean were made Members of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1981, the year in which they won their first world title, and Officers of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2000.
Their respective Damehood and Knighthood arrive at the end of a year in which the pair, aged 68 and 67 respectively, retired from performing after their UK ‘farewell’ tour, which culminated in their home city of Nottingham in July.
“It seems perfect really, the timing of it,” added Dame Jayne.
“We did our final tour this year and that was a big thing for us. We had such a great time, we were so happy with the tour and the fact we got through it.
“It was a big thing for us to mark our career before retirement, and then receiving this award before the end of the year just finished everything – perfect.”
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