Torvill and Dean were so steamy on the rink, they made ice melt with every move. Their chemistry was undeniable, creating a breathtaking blend of elegance and intensity that captivated audiences around the world. Every glide, lift, and synchronized spin seemed to tell a passionate story, making viewers forget they were watching a sport. Their iconic Boléro routine in 1984 was more than a performance — it was a moment in history. With just their skates and sheer emotion, they transformed the rink into a stage for romance, drama, and artistry. It wasn’t just about technique — it was magic. Even decades later, people still talk about that unforgettable energy. Torvill and Dean weren’t just skaters — they were fire on ice.

Jayne Torvill asks: ‘I suppose you want to know whether we did?’ The Olympic gold medal-winning skater turned presenter of Dancing On Ice is sitting in a London hotel room with her co-host and professional partner Christopher Dean.

Ever since their Bolero routine at the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984, Torvill and Dean have been Britain’s most popular artistic couple; a sort of sanitised version of Nureyev and Fonteyn.

And, as Jayne puts it, everyone wants to know if their off-rink relationship was sexual, or whether any tendresse was, as it were, put on ice.

Like a married couple: But Torvill and Dean insist they have always only been just good friends

The French Press, extremely unkindly, used to call Jayne, now 51, ‘the flying pig’.

In life, she is almost impossibly slender and petite, a fitted navy-blue dress contrasting with the apple-whiteness of her skin.

Dean, a year younger, is wearing a T-shirt and a Donny Osmond grin. The DVD of their latest tour, Dancing On Ice 2008, has just hit the shops.

No teen pop group or semi-retired singer could put so many bums on seats or sitting-room sofas. And they certainly wouldn’t have the stamina.

I’d like to see Barbra Streisand or Mick Jagger take Jayne by the waist and hoist her over their heads 20 times a night for a year.

What is remarkable about Torvill and Dean, or T&D as I now think of them – like G&T without the kick – is their determined ordinariness.

Nottingham-born, they were once dubbed Borevill and Clean and, moreover, they said they actually liked those nicknames!

As with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, who had a similarly ‘safe’ appeal, they conjure up images of boy-meets-girl romance; nothing as earthy and sordid as sexual intercourse – more like a Forties MGM extravaganza that cuts to sunset and end credits.

‘The whole world wants to know if we were in love,’ continues Jayne. Even though both are married – Jayne to Phil Christiansen since 1990, and Chris to American skater Jill Trenary – they exemplified the power of the heart in all its grace, like two ice-bound muses.

Getting steamy: Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean dancing the Bolero

Dean’s first wife, Isabelle Duchesnay, was famously jealous of Jayne and referred to her as the ‘other woman’ in their marriage.

Chris starts to speak but Jayne, who does much of the talking, cuts across him and remarks: ‘We didn’t confirm or deny it. I guess that was part of our appeal. During the Sarajevo Olympics in 1984 the Press kept asking us if we were going to announce our marriage. We kept saying “not yet”, which made them think “maybe they will!” ‘

Their air of sweetness, then, appears to have been a calculated decision rather than a spontaneous one. They met at a Nottingham ice-rink when Chris was still a 16-year-old police cadet and Jayne was an insurance clerk. So far, so suburban.

But both confess to a bat squeak of something. ‘I thought Chris looked like a blond prince,’ says Jayne breathlessly. ‘We formed this wonderful relationship,’ chimes in Chris, finally getting a word in.

‘Relationships with other people didn’t interest us. We were so driven – I mean by work.’

I ask if his first wife was indeed jealous of Jayne. ‘Um, she did make that comment about there being two women in my life.’ He laughs. ‘I think that’s where Princess Diana got her remark about three people in her marriage from!’

‘The trouble was Isabelle didn’t want me to go on skating.’ Jayne chirps in: ‘That was a bit selfish of her.’

Torvill and Dean are like the two figures on a weather clock. When one stops, I half expect the other to get up and pirouette.

After the 12 perfect sixes that won gold in Sarajevo they went professional, then a decade later decided to go amateur again and compete in the Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.

But they only won bronze and there was a national outcry against the judges’ decision.

I ask why they chose to take such an enormous risk? After all, they were older than the other competitors and had been earning a small fortune on the professional circuit.

Chris says: ‘It was a case of: can we still do it?’ Jane interrupts again: ‘We were older and physically we were fitter because of performing professionally. There was a problem with other skaters coming up and reaching their peak, and it was like: “Why are they coming back?” The others looked at us oddly.’

Teachers: Torvill and Dean now teach celebs like Andi Peters how to skate on TV show Dancing On Ice

Do they believe the judges were biased against them, partly because they were national heroes in Britain? Chris nods as neatly as he skates.

‘The judges had their own champions,’ he says. ‘The USSR had just split into all these smaller countries. On the panel of nine, five would be from those countries and guess who they wanted to vote for? The atmosphere with the judges wasn’t great.

‘The writing was on the wall before we went out there.’

For the first time there is an edge to cello-baritone voice, and I can hear the young man who came from a mining family and, as a policeman, had to face his striking father on the other side of the picket lines.

Despite his seeming reticence, Dean was always the hard taskmaster, the one who concentrated on technique hour after hour, while Jayne describes herself wistfully as ‘creative’.

Conversely, losing out at the Olympics seemed to revitalise their careers. After a newspaper dubbed them Borevill and Clean, they decided to ‘do something different’, as they both call it, and dance to the pornographic Latin chants of Carmina Burana.

Carmina Burana consists of extracts from obscene Latin manuscripts found in a Bavarian monastery in 1803. They were written the monks there in the 13th century and set to music by the 20th century German composer Carl Orff in 1935.)

‘Yeah,’ smiles Chris. ‘It was porn in Latin.’ Jayne puts a hand to her mouth: ‘Oh, those naughty monks.’

But wasn’t it a bit like Doris Day posing for Playboy? ‘Oh, no,’ Jayne squeals. ‘It was an innovation. That’s all.’

Still, the Press made much of it. I wonder if either of them has been hurt by being likened to ‘tubes of toothpaste’ by one interviewer.

Was Jayne very upset when the French called her ‘a flying pig’? ‘I think Isabelle wrote that!’ Jayne laughs gamely, but her cobalt eyes are downcast.

‘I think my husband hid it. Then I saw it later. I didn’t really mind that much.’

She perks up: ‘And it was the French!’

The pair have been presenting Dancing On Ice since the first series began in 2006. It seems a thankless task teaching celebrities such as Gareth Gates and Bonnie Langford to skate and dance as well.

‘We had a call about the idea,’ ruminates Jayne. ‘It was a sort of follow-on from Strictly Come Dancing. We thought it would be hard teaching celebs to skate, but we were up for the challenge.

‘It’s harder than dancing, as you have to skate before you can learn steps.’

The ITV1 show, which returns with a Christmas special and then begins a new series in January, has an edge to it that Strictly lacks, largely because the risk of serious injury is greater.

Chris appears to relish this. ‘There have been injuries,’ he positively beams. ‘There is certainly more danger in it. There is always that thought: “Are they going to fall?” Of course, it’s not our problem if someone breaks their leg and sues the programme.’

Jayne qualifies this: ‘We teach them how to fall so they are less likely to hurt themselves. You have to relax as you fall. At the beginning they get elbow, knee and head protection.’

T&D explain that an ability to dance off the ice is no advantage. ‘Dance training is very different from skating. I don’t think we would win Strictly!

‘Bonnie Langford’s dance training didn’t help her, although her weight made her easier to lift. It took a while before she got the skating right.’

Jayne and Chris, unlike the judges on Strictly, are always very polite about the performances.

‘We teach them as well,’ says Chris, ‘so we don’t want to be rude to them.’

The huge success of Dancing On Ice has encouraged the nation to get its skates on, with more ice-rinks than ever opening in London this winter.

Jayne shakes her head. ‘It’s made skating popular, but actually there are still far too few rinks,’ she says.

Chris nods on cue. ‘Outside London there are practically no rinks.’ Jayne continues: ‘There is not enough funding for skating in this country. We don’t have the right infrastructure for a lot of sports.’

Do they think the London Olympics should be ‘low key’, as is being suggested by Mayor Boris Johnson?

Jayne is indignant again. She looks like a yellow parakeet. ‘How often do we get the Olympics here? Why would you want to keep it low key? We should celebrate it. It’s the pinnacle of an athlete’s career.’

T&D both started skating young: Jayne when she was eight and Chris when he was ten.

Now they are like an old married couple at a bus stop; snug and easy without the frenzied complications of the horizontal bit. But, I ask one last time, did they once strike when the ice was cold?

Jayne looks at me and suddenly wells up. ‘I have to get this off my chest. I can’t keep this secret any more. Sorry, Chris. One night, after dancing Carmina Burana, all alone on a rink, our lips suddenly brushed.

‘Then Chris started pulling off my latex costume. The ice melted in every way. It was a perfect six.’

Of course, she says nothing of the kind. She just looks prim and says what she will probably say until she dies: ‘We were always really good friends.’ You can’t put the skates under Torvill and Dean.

• Dancing On Ice: The Live Tour 2008 is out now on DVD (Universal, £19.99). A two-disc boxset with the 2007 Live Tour and 2008 Live Tour is also available for £29.99. The Dancing On Ice 2009 Tour starts on April 2 at Sheffield Arena, followed by dates in Nottingham, London, Manchester, Newcastle and Birmingham. Visit www.dancingonicetour.co.uk or call 08700 112 626 for tickets.