14 Facts About Betty Callaway

Betty Callaway was best known as the coach of Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, the 1984 Olympic champions, and trained 1980 world champions Krisztina Regoczy and Andras Sallay, and 1972 European champions Angelika and Erich Buck.

Betty Callaway grew up in London, where she attended a convent school.

Betty Callaway originally wanted to become a ballet dancer and applied to the Royal Ballet School but was turned down because they considered her too tall.

Betty Callaway later developed an interest in ice skating and took lessons at the Queens Ice Rink in Bayswater.

Betty Callaway was taught how to skate by British coach Gladys Hogg.

Betty Callaway joined the Blackpool Pleasure Beach ice show as a performer in 1944, at the age of 16, where she met her future husband Roy Callaway, a principal skater there.

Betty Callaway's pupils included Princess Anne who took lessons over three winters; Prince Charles took lessons for approximately six weeks during a school holiday.

Betty Callaway became the national ice dancing trainer for West Germany in 1969, where she coached Angelika and Erich Buck to gold at the 1972 European Championships.

In 1978, Betty Callaway began working with Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean, who had previously been coached by Janet Sawbridge.

Betty Callaway was appointed MBE for services to ice dancing later that year.

Betty Callaway was widowed in 1988 when Fittall died in a house fire.

Betty Callaway later reconciled with Callaway, and they remarried in 2003, remaining together until her death.

Betty Callaway was found dead at her home in Seer Green, Buckinghamshire on 27 June 2011.

Betty Callaway had sustained a head injury thought to have resulted from a fall and had been drinking according to toxicology reports.