One smile and she was gone for ever

AS A 13-year-old boy in early 1961, good looks were yet to find me, so it was a real surprise to be accosted on my way to school on Valentine’s Day. The young lady in question was the most attractive young lady I had ever seen: she had dark, wavy, shoulder-length hair and was dressed in a stylish outfit. I was wearing my school uniform of a jacket, long trousers and cap, plus my usual happy disposition, when she walked towards me. I had never seen her before that day. She handed me a Valentine’s card, smiled and then walked on. Astounded at my first experience of the fairer sex, I dropped my school bag and tore open the envelope. The card had a photo of the Mona Lisa with a bubble coming out of her mouth saying: ‘I’ll never smile again . . .’ Intrigued, I opened the card, but there were no handwritten words, just the printed message: ‘. . . If you won’t be my Valentine.’ For three months I walked that same pavement, some days arriving late for school, just for one more smile, but I never saw her again.

Harry Pope, Eastbourne, E. Sussex.