‘We can write,’ I said, knowing that we wouldn’t.

He turned away and stared into the distance. It was late and the sky was speckled with stars.

We were sitting on the empty beach in Poros, Greece. Music played in the background and the voices of al fresco diners – my parents among them - were carried by the light breeze.

It was summer 1993 and tomorrow I would return to England, secretly relishing the return to routine and the completion of my A levels.

‘You have make me happy,’ Alex said, then kissed me with a tenderness that I thought every man in my future would possess.

Outside my hotel, he wrote my address on the back of his hand, reading it back to me carefully.

For three months, he wrote once a week. His letters were charismatic and witty, describing families in the restaurant and snatches of overheard conversation. There were crossings out and corrections of English, a sense of writing in the moment, free from self-censorship.

In contrast, my responses were drafted in pencil, proofread and sense checked, (first allusions to my career as an editor, perhaps) then typed up in the college library.

The only time I put pen to paper was during the Christmas holidays, when my mother announced her affair with her boss and my father had his first breakdown.

Alex never wrote back.

But he called.

He called on New Year’s Eve and we talked for so long that nothing else mattered.