Meet Terri - the prize-winning dancing nana!

Dance teacher Glenn Badham (left) with Terri Richmond and the national dance trophy they won in Blackpool.

Grandmother Terri, from the village of Walcote near Lutterworth, won a national over-50 dance contest in Blackpool.

And she told the Mail: “It means a lot to me. Dance has helped me be the person I never had the opportunity to be before.”

Terri won her top prize at the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool with a tango.

She danced with her professional partner Glenn Badham, the Principal at the Gotta Dance school based in Husbands Bosworth. The school holds dance classes across south Leicestershire.

Terri, a former administrator in a psychiatric hospital, said: “I hadn’t really danced since I was 16.

“But I moved up to Leicestershire in October last year determined to take it up again.

“I told Glenn right from the start that I wanted to win a competition, and to be honest I worked to that end non-stop for a whole year.

“The year has gone by in a blur of dance lessons, gym sessions and competitions. My granddaughter calls me ‘dancing nana’!

“I’ve found that dance has rebuilt my confidence after a bad relationship. It’s not just exercise, it’s who I am.”

Her dance teacher and competition partner Glenn said: “It’s not very often that someone walks into our school with the kind of commitment and motivation that Terri showed.

“She won qualifiers throughout the year and held it together brilliantly in the final.”