Steps in Time

THE FIRST MEMOIR FROM NATIONAL TREASURE AND STRICTLY STAR, ANTON DU BEKE

'This is what dance means to me. It means the things that seems to have been there before everything else, and the thing that will be there after everything else. Not as a career. Not as a plan. Just as 'the thing'. The reason to get up at three in the morning and the reason to stay up until midnight. The reason why anything in this book that wasn't dance was worth doing at all.'

A nostalgic coming-of-age story, filled with the charm and wit we've come to know and love, Steps in Time reveals the man behind the glitterball.

Over the past two decades, Anton Du Beke has captured the hearts of the nation with his fancy footwork on Strictly Come Dancing. But behind the perfect quickstep and the twinkle in his eye is a story he's never told. Now, for the first time, Anton reflects on the journey he's been on to become the national treasure he is today.

Growing up in Kent in the 1970s, a child of two immigrants, Anton spent his childhood out of doors: between summers spent in Spain and school days playing football, cricket, conkers, anything, Anton found his calling as soon as he stepped into the dance studio. Discovering a whole new world of steps, shoes and Fred Astaire, Anton started chasing his newfound dream of ballroom dancing.

From then on, Anton would stop at nothing to pursue his ambition: working odd jobs all hours to fund his classes and eventually moving to London, home of Drury Lane and the London Palladium. Mentored by the likes of legendary Len Goodman, and inspired by the showmanship of Bruce Forsyth, Anton became a world-class performer at the centre of ballroom. Alongside his dance partner, Erin Boag, Anton moved from amateur to professional, until the glittering world of Strictly came knocking.