AS A TEACHER, SHE HAS TO COVER HER INKINGS

Kathy Box, 56, from Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, works in sales, while her daughter Poppy Burnett, 26, is a maths teacher.

KATHY SAYS: Poppy has always been passionate about numbers — she got a first class degree in maths — but I was unbelievably upset when she got a mathematical equation tattooed on her shoulder (left) shortly after her 18th birthday.

She has since had another four tattoos: a phoenix on one ankle; a cat on another; the word ‘cariad’ on one inner wrist, which means love in Welsh; and a heart rhythm line, with a blue heart, on the other.

I didn’t want her to spoil her lovely skin, and people have second thoughts about them as they get older. But she’s a grown-up, married woman, so I have no say in what she does. Poppy is such a clever girl, and I thought she’d have more sense than to do something so many still take a dim view of.

In fact, she’s starting a new job at a grammar school in September and it has said her tattoos must be covered at all times. This will mean wearing wrist bands all the time, as well as trousers or thick tights — even on hot days. I haven’t said ‘I told you so’ because I don’t think that would be helpful.

POPPY SAYS: Each of my tattoos has real personal significance to me, representing love and friendship. It’s body art — something I get to take with me wherever I go. But I know that, to my mum, there is a stigma associated with tattoos.

For her generation, they used to be associated with less respectable people in society. We don’t argue about them any more, thankfully.