³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Trust my mum to go and spoil it all. "Well, you realise that you'll have to go and win it now!" she said, giggling uncontrollably at the thought. Ah - another plan I hadn't thought through properly.

From the beginning

It all started a few weeks ago when the luscious Darren Bennett and his dance partner Jessie Wallace (Kat from EastEnders) were voted off Strictly Come Dancing. Graham Barnard (my partner in crime on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Norfolk's Morning Show) and I interviewed him and he said he was really bored as he'd never been voted out that early.

As a favour to him I offered to fill his lonely days by volunteering myself for a private lesson from the master. As my mother says, "Well, if you don't ask, you don't get". "Sure," he said, "no problem!"

Darren instructs Karen and Aaron

What normally happens when celebrities say things like this is that their lobotomist gets back in touch, confirming that their client has indeed lost their marbles, or you discover that their ‘people’ have all miraculously gone on holiday to Outer Bongo-Bongo Land and won't be back until 2025.

You could have knocked me down with a sequinned-feather when my mobile rang a few days later. "Hi! Is this Karen? It's Darren Bennett here".

We made arrangements to meet in Cheam, Surrey, a couple of weeks later for my private dance lesson. I spent the rest of the day running up a huge phone bill, calling all of my friends to tell them the news.

Panic

I spent the next few hours deciding what to wear, how to wear it and how to appear cool, calm and collected in front of the former World Show Dance Champion and holder of countless British Latin dance titles.

I phoned my dance partner, Aaron, who seemed very cool about it all. (I later discovered he was just as nervous as me). Finally, on Sunday, 2 November, 2008, we walked into Dance Options Studio in Cheam ready to be put through our paces.

To our horror, we realised that this was where most of the pros and semi-pros came to practice and we were rather intimidated by the pair of eight-year-olds in the corner.

Darren arrived at midday and admitted he was slightly hungover. They don't finish recording Strictly until around 10.30pm and everyone goes out for a few drinks afterwards to unwind after all the excitement.

Strictly's Darren Bennett

He might have been desperate for black coffee, but he was looking indecently good for a man who'd only got to bed at 5am! I had hoped to meet his lovely wife Lilia too, but Darren had a confession to make.

Darren shows Karen how to do it

He'd dropped her during rehearsals the day before so she was battered and bruised. It was oddly reassuring to hear that even the professionals make mistakes!

Darren scrutinised our Cha-Cha ("Good arms, but don't let your heel come up on the back step", he said) and streamlined my spot turn from a startled rabbit-in-headlights look to something approaching sexy.

He cast his eye over our ballroom Jive ("too bouncy, push through the floor", he said) and confessed that he hates most Jives performed on Strictly as they're not done properly.

He smiled gamely through our treading on each others toes, otherwise known as the Foxtrot. Apparently our posture could be improved.

"The man should be offering his arms to the woman, not trying to give her a bear hug," said Darren.

"The woman should be moving her legs backwards like a pendulum and smiling serenely whilst looking out to sea, not panicking that she's about to fall over and grimacing," he added. Hmm. So, all in all not bad then?

The verdict

At the end of the session Darren turned to the camera, smiled and said: "Karen is a great dancer and I think she's got the potential to go all the way".

Okay, so he didn't say "and win ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Radio Norfolk's Dancers in Need competition", but he read the rest of my script beautifully.