With less than a week until the Strictly Come Dancing final, Annabel Croft has left the ballroom. She’s taken a sizeable chunk of the nation’s heart with her.
It was only in spring this year that the former tennis champion and mother of three lost her husband Mel Coleman to cancer. Still reeling from the quick progression of his illness and adjusting to life as a widow, she threw herself into Strictly’s notoriously gruelling training regime, hoping for distraction from her grief.
As we watched her, week after week, growing stronger, more confident and letting go of her inhibitions, it was like watching someone emerge from darkness into light. I doubt even she recognises the woman who tore up a neon Salsa on Saturday night, backflipping into her partner’s arms.
Her pairing with Johannes Radebe was crucial to her increasingly joyful progression through the competition. There is something so incredibly nurturing about his friendship, you get the impression he would take a bullet for her, no questions asked.
They have clearly become far more than a dance partnership, the pro dancer wrapping an arm of protection around his celebrity partner as she began to process her loss and learned to express herself in a way she never had before.
Sportspeople sometimes do well on Strictly because of their stamina and strength. But more often, their honed musculature isn’t quite equipped to bend and waft with the grace of a dancer.
Not so with Croft. The woman is part-swan. Her ballroom routines in particular looked like no effort at all as she flew across the floor, neck extended and arms spread like she was born to spend her days gliding across a lake, not swinging a racket.
She didn’t just sail through every week on the back of her considerable ability, it was just as much about how she acquitted herself off the dance floor. There is a quiet dignity in her Britishness, she’s always bashful in the face of compliments, grateful for the support of viewers and gracious to the last as she wished the final three good luck for the big finish next week.
But under that, grief is something to which so many watching will be able to relate. She didn’t have to burst into tears every week to let us know what a weight she was carrying. We could see it, and that’s why it was even more impressive that, every Saturday for a few minutes, she was able to make that burden look as though it weighed nothing at all.
People competing in TV competitions talk a lot about journeys: starting in one place, finishing in another. But for the past 12 weeks we’ve had the privilege of watching a woman determinedly push herself through what must be the toughest year of her life, using the music and comradeship as life preservers and somehow staying afloat. More than afloat, she seems to have flourished.
She has already signed up to do the Strictly live tour next year (dancing with Graziano di Prima) so, although she won’t be under the wing of her beloved Johannes, the dance doesn’t have to end here.
I have a feeling, for Annabel, the figurative and literal steps she’s taken since September have brought her to a new place in her life, one filled with possibility.