The 9-year-old Romeo

That was me. It wasn't Juliet who was the love of my life but Janet. The surname will have to remain a secret. I was infatuated with her. Totally besotted. With her looks anyway. Yet this was the original one-way romance.

She was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen, about the same age as me. I'm convinced to this day if she'd lived in California and wandered through the gates of MGM the producers would have rushed her there and then.
 
Her hair was dark brown, mostly in a flowing style, profuse, bedecked with ribbons (no doubt the product of her plump mother's imagination). White gleaming teeth like Elizabeth Taylor and a developing figure that would resemble Esther Williams. Her skin - well you wouldn't see anything smoother on a beauty salon salesgirl.

She lived a few doors up the street and had a sister who married a rich South African and went to live there. Her father was a policeman.

At play I tried to impress Janet by fooling around with a soccer ball. If there was even a hint of her watching I'd toy with that ball like Pele might have done. Tap tap tap a dozen times, the ball like a yo-yo on the end of my foot without once hitting the ground. Then I'd do about twelve consecutive headers, seeking her admiration out of the corner of my eye. It never came.

We both attended the same school and I attempted to chat with her on the way home. Voluble she was not, certainly no Oprah Winfrey. I see now it was due to pressure from her (far-sighted) Mum. I didn't fit her future plans for Janet under any circumstances. My surname was a bit too common I guess.

Chat-up having failed, I took to following her home from school, admiring from a distance as it were. This brought a lecture from her Mum, after which I felt like the world's first child pervert. Maybe I was!

Later, in high school, Janet had a boyfriend. His bicycle was parked at her house often. That was agony for me. I felt like challenging him to a punch-up but I knew he'd win because he was much taller and older.

After about two years of this emotional torment my parents moved away and I went with them. It was goodbye Janet. No tearful words from her, it was only in my imagination.

Years later I recognised her instantly in one of Manchester's biggest dance-halls. We exchanged banalities then she threw the uppercut. "You know, I cried when you left the district," she said, staring at me. This was a verbal knockout. Even having said it, she wouldn't date me, much as I tried.

I was only nine when this infatuation began, yet strange to say I've never been so enchanted
by anyone, mentally and emotionally, since then. Unrequited love? Yes, I know what it means.