I went from professional skater to cat rescuer

What could a professional ice skater, a former England football goalkeeper and a litter of kittens possibly have in common? They are all sharing a beautiful home nestled in the heart of rural Berkshire.

Frankie Seaman, 53, wife of former England goalkeeper David Seaman, spent 10 years as a professional on the TV Series Dancing on Ice but her love of cats predates that.

"I've been fostering cats for way longer than I've been ice skating." she says.

As she talks, a small cat bed in the corner is squeaking with the sounds of her latest arrivals - a litter of three-week-old kittens.

The kittens' mother Luna, who watches dutifully as Frankie lifts her babies out of their bed and on to a blanket, came to Frankie pregnant with her litter.

Luna is one of 14,000 cats fostered through Cats Protection in the UK every year and pregnant cats like her, known as queens, are Frankie's speciality.

The arrangement is temporary, Frankie provides a safe, sterile environment for the kittens to be born - then the real hard work begins.

"With kittens, it's really important that we start socialising them... from about two weeks old." she says. "Because they've been brought up in a home situation, they're not going to be scared of hairdryers, hoovers, TVs or radios.

"They get all those lovely sights and sounds and they will be ready to move on to their new families soon."

Soon means just nine weeks from birth, at which point the kittens have been socialised, vaccinated and neutered before they are returned to the shelter for adoption.

That's the plan most of the time but it does not always work out - two cats previously ended up staying with Frankie in what is known as a "foster fail".

"I was ready to adopt two new kittens so that was a good time and that's probably my proudest achievement, that I haven't kept 150,000 kittens," she says.

Those two kittens, now much older cats, could be spotted prowling the garden outside as she talks.

Socialising newborn kittens seems a far cry from her previous career as an ice skater but Frankie says the skills are "very transferable".

"Ice skating is physical communication," she says. "We do not speak and cats and kittens are also physical communicators, they don't speak to you."

Frankie's days can be intense, even compared to the 16-hour days she faced on Dancing on Ice, especially when the kittens are first born.

"I have to feed them and toilet them every hour, on the hour, 24/7. There's no resting, there's no napping, there's no time to wind down or warm up."

Even so, she thinks the two pastimes make for a good combination.

"I would recommend any ice skaters go in to kitten fostering," she says.