by Len Goodman
Before I bought the cottage I had a full structural survey completed, as I didn't want to be caught out in any way; luckily it came back saying that there were no serious problems with the house. However, just before we were about to exchange contracts Lesley and I were there looking at the curtains. While Lesley was inside measuring up, I was walking around in the garden when I noticed that one of the walls of the original cottage had a slight bow in it. I'm not sure how come I even saw it, because I certainly wasn't looking for it. The next day I called the surveyor to talk it over with him.
'Look, you haven't mentioned this bow in the wall which even I can see. Should I be worried about this?'
'I did notice it, but I've checked it and it isn't a problem – it's perfectly sound, but I will go and have another look at it. If that's what you want, sir.' A couple of days later he called me back to confirm it was not a problem. I called the man selling the house who said that If I was worried about the wall he would write to my solicitor to the effect that – at least as I understood it – should anything happen in the future with the wall then he would pay to put it right. Worries over. The surveyor had said the wall was fine and my solicitor got a letter saying the seller would pay for it to be fixed if anything untoward should happen.
I didn't spend my days at Rose Cottage worrying about it, and we lived there happily, but I did every now and again check to see how the wall was looking. Over time it got steadily worse, to the point where after four years an inch and a half gap had appeared between the window frame and the wall. I decided to meet with my solicitor; he suggested we have another surveyor look at it.
'Mr Goodman, this is dangerous, you've got to get this shored up otherwise the whole side of your house could collapse.' This was just a local surveyor, so I decided to get a second opinion. I called in one of the biggest surveying firms in Britain, who've got offices in New York, Hong Kong and God knows where. They cost me a small fortune but I wanted to be certain before getting the surveyor who originally looked at it under the cosh. My main priority was the urgent need to get it put right; it cost me 18 grand!
Not that I thought it was costing me anything: I assumed that because I had the letter from the previous owner I was covered. I was just ensuring the bloody house didn't fall down. Unfortunately the man I bought the house from didn't see it quite the same way as I did and we inevitably ended up in court. One of the lawyers involved in the case said:
'Mr Goodman, this is an open-and-shut case. We cannot lose.' Of course it was anything but and although we had written evidence from the biggest company in the world, with offices God knows where, things went badly from the start.
To prove everything I had done, I got a professional photographer to record the before and after; I had enough pictures to publish a whole book of photographs on the rebuilding of the wall. The judge decreed that this was inadmissible evidence and wouldn't accept it. At that moment I thought all was lost, but thankfully the other side were not as confident of their case and offered to settle out of court for £12,000. I had asked for £18,000 but thought what the heck, better to get this whole charade over and done with so I was all for accepting the money. I was talked out of it, with people saying things like: 'They wouldn't have offered to settle otherwise, would they, Mr Goodman?' I allowed them to change my mind and the open- and- shut case in my favour ended up going against me. I had to pay my costs, their costs and the £18,000 it cost me to fix it. It wiped me out for years. In the first instance I had no option but to increase my mortgage on Rose Cottage.
There's no doubt that it affected my relationship with Lesley. Any lingering doubts we had about staying there disappeared, but there was another more practical reason in that James had developed asthma and the doctor thought the damp air there, because of all the surrounding trees, was a factor. We put Rose Cottage on the market and it sold for £140,000, which would normally have been a pretty healthy profit. However, the court case cost that and more of the so-called profit.
We had not the money to buy somewhere else that we really liked, so as a stopgap we moved into the flat above the dance school in Gravesend. We went from six bedrooms and several acres of garden to a dance school in the back garden. James had the bedroom on the top floor, while we had the bedroom on the third floor. For a start I was overworked in the school: it's a place where you have to be upbeat, full of fun. It's like doing a performance. When I arrived home I was drained and I just wanted to relax. I didn't particularly want to talk; I just wanted to chill out and unwind. In retrospect I should have balanced work with play – all work and no play made Len a dull boy.
After enduring a couple of years in the cramped dance school flat, during which time our relationship went further downhill, we bought another house, which in its own way proved to be just as disastrous as the cottage. We had spotted a lovely development of 13 houses on a private estate in Gravesend called Brontë View. We went and viewed the show house and I fell in love with it. They were detached homes, advertised at £204,000, which they were building one at a time. Having been told they were all virtually the same as the show house we said we'd have the next one. I'd managed to accrue some money from having lived in the flat and so we had enough to put down a deposit but it still meant a pretty hefty mortgage. Not that we, or anyone else who was buying houses at the time, bothered as prices were moving upwards so quickly that we made a profit before we even moved in. The next house they built after ours went for £210,000 so that was six grand in the bank already. Even before we had moved in they sold another for £213,000, and then two more went for £220,000. Just as we finally moved into our house they sold one for £230,000 so we contented ourselves with having made £26,000. We couldn't quite believe it...sure enough we were right not to.
One of the best things about living in the flat in Gravesend was being able to walk James to school. Seeing him in the evenings was difficult because of my teaching commitments, so the morning was very much our time together. I began to pick up on James's dislike of the convent school: he would mention it all too often as we walked there, but I put it down to kid's talk. When is a kid ever that happy with school? Being smacked every day by a middle-aged woman was the norm for me when I was at school; I hear people pay good money for that kind of thing today.
One Wednesday morning I took James to school but unfortunately I forgot to pick up his gym stuff – his plimsolls and shorts and top. It was my fault, I should have remembered; how many kids at that age know what day of the week it is? Apparently when it came time for gym the teacher in charge made James stand on a chair in his underpants, because of forgetting his stuff, while all the other children had their PE lesson. James was a very sensitive little boy and so when I went to pick him up in the afternoon he was distraught. I was furious that they had humiliated him and so the next morning James stayed at home and I went straight up the convent to tell them I was pulling him out of the school. Decision made, and not a difficult one; the question was what to do next.
There were two things that came into play in deciding on a new school for James; one was the fact that he definitely followed in his old man's footsteps in that he wasn't the most academically gifted of kids. He tried harder, a lot harder, than I did, but his mother and I knew that singing and dancing was a more likely option than brain surgery especially after a girl he sat next to at school announced, 'I mustn't sit next to James Goodman 'cos he's a dumb-dumb.' Charming!
James loved coming to the dance school and although we never ever said, do you want to join in with the other kids, one day he suddenly did. From the outset it became clear he had a talent for it. Lesley and I decided we should enrol him into Italia Conti, the theatre arts school, near the Barbican. It's the oldest school of its type in Britain and so we thought it perfect for James. As luck would have it there was a coach service that went from Gravesend to London Bridge. From there it was a tube to the Barbican and then a short walk. Every weekday he and I caught the 7.30 a.m. coach to take him to school. I did the
trip for six weeks, first me showing him the way, and then James showing me the way; after six weeks James started doing the journey alone. He was nine and a half, coming up ten, and this did a great deal to build his confidence. Best of all, though, James was suddenly in an environment that was perfect for him; he went from hating school to loving it.
Sadly it came to a point where being with Lesley was just impossible for me, and I think she couldn't stand being with me either. We were always arguing, which is no environment to bring up a child. It was just history repeating itself, because I'd grown up in similar circumstances 30-something years earlier, so I had some idea of how difficult it could be. I was the one that made the actual decision to split up. Lesley decided to move back to the Isle of Wight and 12-year-old James went with her. It put paid to Italia Conti but we were lucky that James got into a really good school, a normal one, not a stage or theatre school, although on the island there was a programme called Stage Coach, where we enrolled him, that encouraged his talent. I bought them a bungalow on the Isle of Wight; we discussed how much she would need, along with the house, and just settled it amicably. There was another small bonus for Lesley in that half the Gravesend dance studio we bought was in her name. It was to do with business and VAT, which at the time my accountant advised was the best way to do it. Today the school is rented and Lesley still gets half the money, a just reward in some ways, as it was her idea in the first place. But having said that it's my side of the story and Lesley probably has a very different take on things.
With Lesley and James gone I was living in the house in Gravesend, which by the day was reducing in value. My 'so called' £26,000 profit of a couple of years earlier when we first moved in had turned into a thumping great loss. As every week went by it was worth less and less. I eventually sold it for £148,000; I virtually gave it away just to be out of it and release myself from the mortgage payments. Not surprisingly they're now selling for £400,000. I went back to my bolthole, the flat above the studio in Gravesend. It was something of a low point in my life, because while I was happy to be free of the negative atmosphere that two people living together in unhappy circumstances create, I was stony broke. The cost of Lesley's place and paying the mortgage on the worthless Gravesend house meant that I had been working my nuts off. So there I was, 49, coming up 50, pretty much skint, living in a two-bedroom flat over the dance school in the aptly named Gravesend – things could only get better.
Better is always a matter of someone's opinion; for me it was better in that I was no longer living in a doomed relationship. I was not the only one in this situation: John Knight had got married in the eighties but his had also broken down. John and I went back to our old ways and spent too much time playing golf and having a laugh. I missed James a lot and so whenever possible he would come up to stay during the school holidays. We'd often go out for the day together, usually somewhere fairly local. One time I asked James where he'd like to go and he said Alton Towers. Well, this was a fair drive so we decided to turn it into a weeklong tour of British theme parks. We did Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventure before getting to Alton Towers; on the way back we did Longleat Safari Park.
The dance school required, and got, a good deal of my attention, as I was not going to let things slip. I needed the money to deal with my responsibilities and I had also worked too hard to let it all disappear; apart from anything else I kept telling myself that I was totally unsuited to any other kind of work. Somewhat unbelievably I was still riding on the back of the Saturday Night Fever and disco boom of years earlier. Throughout the eighties and on into the nineties large numbers of people were still wanting to do pop dancing; we had 400 or so kids that did it every week. I also saw this as an opportunity to try and encourage some of them to take up ballroom and Latin American, although if I'm honest I think that Latin was a bigger draw for most of those that did take it up. Martin Cawston and Julie Tomkins, a professional dancing couple that came to me for lessons, helped me with this idea. They came from East Anglia and were only partners on the dance floor. They also did some teaching for a guy who had a studio in Orpington and after I'd been coaching them for a while I suggested that they come and teach Latin and Ballroom dancing for me, specifically with the kids. Having Julie and Martin at the school was brilliant because both of them were not only good dancers; they were also very good teachers.
Besides concentrating on making the school more successful I was also doing a lot of judging; Japan was by this time a regular trip, one that I really enjoyed. I also judged the United States Ballroom Championships, which are in Miami every September. Then in 1993 I was asked to judge the open section of the Blackpool Championships, which is the pinnacle of a judge's achievement. I'd previously judged the exhibition section, the one that Cherry and I won all those years ago, I judged Junior Blackpool, the closed National British Championships, but I had never actually judged the premier dancing competition in the world. It's strange, because judging Blackpool brings you far more kudos than judging the world Championships, which I'd already done. In those days there was a panel of 11 judges that adjudicated at each event and these were drawn from a pool of 25 judges. In the dance world it's a bit like becoming a Knight of the Garter; it's certainly a very select group. From a career point of view this was it, I was in with the most respected judges in the dance world – once you've judged Blackpool you've cracked it. I was even asked back several more times during the nineties, so I must have been doing something right. Although I'm making a joke of it I was very proud of this and still am – it's a great honour.
I embarked upon a relationship with Julie, the teacher from the dance school, she was responsible from bringing back my passion for ballroom and Latin dancing once again, having let it dwindle in favour of disco. As I turned 50, and as is so often the case when you get to these milestone years, it encouraged me to reflect a little more on what had been and what the future might have in store. I was getting on a bit now, there was no escaping the fact; I'd been teaching for 30-odd years. I ran a successful dance school and I did a bit of judging, which all suited me fine but I certainly had to work hard for my daily bread.
One day I was sitting in John Knight's office chatting when he did the most amazing deal. One of his many businesses was a tile firm; he bought and sold wall and floor tiles. As we were talking the phone rang.
'Hello, mate,' said John. 'A container load you say? Okay, I'll take 'em. Five grand, no problem, it's a deal.' With that he put the phone down and immediately started dialling.
'Won't be a minute, Len,' said John as he waited for the person to answer.
'Hello, Stevie, I've got a container of tiles, they're the blue ones; you interested? They're ten grand. Okay, mate, we'll deliver them too, you drive a hard bargain.'
With his deal done we carried on talking but it did amaze me. There was John making £5,000 in less than five minutes. I had no cause for complaint because while I had to tighten my belt on occasions, it was only when things had gone pear-shaped with relationships and because of my business. The dance school and teaching ticked over and gave me a bloody good lifestyle – barring the odd hiccup. Now I see just how very different things can be, how easy it is to make some nice dollops of money when you have a degree of fame. Don't think I have any illusions about myself, I'm just a judge of Strictly Come Dancing, but the world is a crazy place. Just before I went off to America in the spring of 2008 they decided to show Dancing with the Stars on one of the satellite channels and wanted Bruno and I to do a little promo trailer. They sent a car to pick me up, I spent a couple of hours filming and then they dropped me back home – they paid me three grand! It's truly bizarre. I'm no different now to what I was 30 years ago – why didn't they bloody come along then? I had more hair and I was better looking. Still, better late than never.
I've been known to complain about some of the professional dancers on Strictly and their attitude to fame and celebrity. For some it has gone to their heads and they began thinking
they were bigger celebrities than the celebrities they dance with. Take Brendan Cole: he was in a TV show called Celebrity Love Island, which I never saw, but I gather he was runner-up to somebody's son. A load of young blokes and girls on an island where there's lots of shagging and they film it! He seemed to come off that thinking he was a superstar. You must never forget who you are and I'm always saying to him, 'I don't understand you; we're just lucky to be doing what we're doing. I never forget that I'm just a dance teacher from Dartford – that's what I am – never forget where you come from.'
Recently I was putting some petrol in the car and a woman standing at the next pump said, 'You're Len Goodman, aren't you?'
'Oh, hello,' I said.
Bloody daft! I'm always saying to family and friends, if you ever see me behaving like I'm up myself, give me a bollocking. I hate all that.
Having a son when you're a slightly older parent probably helps to keep your feet on the ground. It certainly did for me. On one occasion when James was 17 and I was 55, we went to the pictures. I went to pick him up.
'Dad, you can't go out like that!'
'What's wrong?' I said.
'Look at you, your shirt's tucked in.'
'Of course it is, my shirt's always tucked in,' I said.
'Dad, no one goes out with their shirt inside their trousers.'
