• last month
Twinkle-toed Terri Picton-Clark, 72, became a national champion eight years ago but later feared she would have to hang up her dancing shoes due to the cost of her hobby.

After winning £1m on the National Lottery she is delighted to be able to tango across Blackpool’s iconic Tower Ballroom.
Transcript
00:00My name is Terry and I'm a national lottery winner and that money has enabled me to tick
00:07off some of the things on my bucket list, one of which was to dance at the world-famous
00:14Blackpool Tower Ballroom. In 2017 I couldn't talk, I'd had a stroke, they found I had
00:21a faulty heart valve. It was a problem but not a big one, it wasn't affecting my life,
00:28so I carried on being a survivor not a victim and carried on keeping fit and dancing,
00:37just learning to dance smarter not harder. In 2021 I won the lottery with my husband John
00:48and that changed my life in that I could take control of my health issues.
00:56I got a personal trainer to keep me fit, I had regular dance lessons again to keep me
01:04fit because the consultant said whatever you're doing keep doing it and I carried on doing that
01:11until my consultant last August said to me okay now it's life-threatening we have to get you in
01:21for surgery, two valves replaced before Christmas and I had the surgery done on November the 29th
01:30and I was told to keep on doing what I was doing but just be aware that I had a new engine so I
01:41was running it in. This ballroom is beyond anything that I had ever imagined, I was told
01:49it was opulent, I was told it was breathtaking but until I walked in I didn't realise the magnitude,
01:57the splendour, the ceiling, it's just beyond words, the atmosphere is really special.
02:06Thanks to all my good friends around me I have been able to carry on working, I have not overdone
02:15it because people shouted at me if I did and here I am ready to defend.

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