Twinkle-toed lottery winner dances at the Blackpool Tower Ballroom like her Strictly Come Dancing favourites

Video (click to play above) shows the heartwarming moment when a twinkle-toed lottery winner got to live her dream of dancing in the Blackpool Tower Ballroom - after money worries previously meant she might have to quit her hobby.

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. But that all changed when she won the Lotto prize of £1m with a Lucky Dip ticket - meaning she could keep dancing, even after a major health scare.

Terri needed six hours of “life-saving” open-heart surgery for a heart valve defect last year, but remarkably, she managed to get back dancing just three months later. And now she has been pictured on the fabled Blackpool Tower Ballroom - after buying two beautiful bespoke gowns costing £2,000 each for the occasion.

Terri said: “When The Blackpool Tower Ballroom granted me this wish I was, for the first time in my life, totally speechless. I am a National Lottery winner and now I am dancing at the world-famous Tower Ballroom. I feel like I have won the lottery twice!”

Terri, from Leicestershire, won The Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance (ISTD) Over 50 Bronze Championships in 2016, just two years after she first started dancing.

But in 2017, she suffered a mini-stroke, and her fears about the cost of the hobby also made her feel like she would have to give it up. However, avid Strictly fan Terri kept going and since winning the lottery, she feels her regular dancing is keeping her young.

“I was seriously contemplating having to hang up my dancing shoes – dancing is a very expensive hobby. But one thing I had always dreamed about was to dance at the world-famous Blackpool Tower Ballroom.

“I watch Strictly every year and every time I see those dancers at Blackpool it just fills me with emotion. I wanted to be up there too but never believed it would actually ever happen.”

Terri is an amateur ballroom and Latin dancer and has competed in hundreds of competitions. She met her dance partner and trainer, Glenn Badham, after attending one of his ballroom dance classes in 2014, and is the only ISTD member who has won five ballroom and three Latin titles, remaining undefeated in the UK in ballroom dancing.

The Strictly fan added that ‘it doesn’t get better than Blackpool’ for ballroom dancing. “I feel like a double winner, standing on the iconic floor at The Tower Ballroom with my favourite moves, and to the sounds of the world-famous Wurlitzer organ.” Terri continues to dance twice a week and has already signed up for another competition, The UK National Medallist Championships, at the start of November.

Aaron Edgar, Operations Manager at The Blackpool Tower and Tower Ballroom, said: “It was just a delight to see Terri on the dancefloor – we were so thrilled to be able to grant her this very special wish. She is certainly one incredible lady – who knows, we may even see her in Strictly next!”