Do you remember your first crush?

If you do, the thought probably takes you back to the playground where you innocently played kiss chase, or held their hand as you lined up to go back into the classroom. Maybe you shared your lunch with the object of your affections, or let them borrow your best pencils. Mine is a little different, partly because he was about 35 years older, married and (as if this was the biggest roadblock) my dentist. I didn’t care a jot for boys my age as I knew them to be malevolent little swine. So, while school friends were blushing to death over some floppy-haired Robbie or Bobby in school I was actively looking forward to trips to the dentist to see the love of my seven-year-old life. And I went to the dentist a lot, because my parents were middle class. I would sit in the waiting room diligently doing my homework and then he would arrive, tall and handsome with his bushy moustache wearing a white coat and singing songs with my name in them (there are a lot of songs with Katy in them, all of them terrible). It wasn’t all rainbows though, and there were times, when he revved up the spinning metal buffer of death, that I had to recall the Shakespearean edict — the course of true love never did run smooth. I bore the pain stoically, looking up at his twinkly brown eyes and trying not to slobber too much when he asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up (number one a dentist’s wife, and then maybe a writer). Before long, he would bring me back to sitting position and a pretty dental nurse (keep your hands off my man, bitch) would offer me a small tumbler of pink liquid to spill and spit into a suction tube. Years later, at a rugby match with my dad we bumped into him. I barley recognised him out of his white coat, but then yes, there were those eyes, and that magnificent ‘tache. My Magnum, P.I. of dentistry.