My Embarrassing First Crush: Authors Reveal All!

Well, we did say romance was in the air . . . even if it is about fifteen years out of date. And highly embarrassing. And most definitely one-sided. Our authors, and we at Between the Sheets reveal those first crushes that used to keep us awake at night. And come to think of it, they still do – even if it’s now for very different reasons. Shudder.

‘My first crush is quite embarrassing: that well known Luton car-fitter by day; second-hand soul crooner by night, Paul Young. I loved his pineapple haircut, his leather trousers and his dreadful murdering of ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’. My father took me to see him when I was thirteen, and I wrote him a long letter telling him (Paul, not my dad) how great he was and if he wanted a pen pal on the road, I was available. Amazingly, he never took me up on my friendly offer. Ooh, and my dad ran a music shop at the time, so I always used to imagine my favourite pop stars popping in for some guitar strings and accidentally falling in love with the awkward looking teenager with the boy’s haircut sitting reading in the corner. Annoyingly, one day when I wasn’t in the shop Lloyd Cole from Lloyd Cole and the Commotions DID pop in for some guitar strings. I guess I’ll never know if it would have worked . . .’
Jenny Colgan, author of Operation Sunshine

‘This is SO embarrassing that I wouldn’t normally divulge it, but since you asked so nicely: I used to adore Arnold Schwarzenegger. I know, I know, I KNOW! But I was young and foolish. My other great loves were Judge Dredd – the comic character, not the film version (which I absolutely hate) and Sherlock Holmes. I liked Arnie because he went to America with very little money and a heavy accent, but managed to become an international movie star. Let’s not forget he didn’t even entertain changing his 14-lettered, 4-syllabled name. I still have that soft spot for Dredd and Sherlock – that’s the thing about fictional characters, you can love them for ever because they never change – but Arnie and I fell out as I grew up and realised we were politically incompatible. Everyone is entitled to their own (wrong) opinions and yes, opposites attract, but I can’t give my heart to someone who thinks so differently to me – even if our relationship would for ever be rooted in the realm of fantasy.’
Dorothy Koomson, author of the forthcoming Goodnight, Beautiful

‘Writing the character of 17-year-old Roxy in The Second Husband was both great fun and completely uncomfortable, because I spent a lot of time remembering my own passions at that age. There’s no doubt those schoolgirl crushes feel a hundred per cent real. Mine were always sports stars. The first, when I was about 13, was the boxer Alan Minter. I spent hours every day fantasising about being plucked from obscurity and installed as his wife. I was beside myself when I heard he was coming to open a sports shop in the local town centre. My friend and I joined the queue for autographs, masked in make-up we’d applied on the bus. I noticed that some of the older girls were getting a kiss from him, as well as an autograph, and I was determined to get one too. When my time came, I held my breath and leant forward. Alan made for my cheek, but at the last moment I turned my head so he was forced to kiss me on the lips! He looked a little taken aback, but I was in heaven. For about a year afterwards I’d fall asleep remembering the touch of our lips.

‘Tennis players were great favourites, too, notably Pat Cash. I remember springing up on an outside court at Wimbledon after he’d finished a match and passing him a love note. I really imagined he would call me afterwards. This kind of thing went on for years. My best friend Abby burst into tears at school one day completely out of the blue and when I asked what was wrong she said, ‘I’ve just realised something terrible. I’m never going to marry John, am I?’ John, in case you’re wondering, was John McEnroe. It was a real end-of-innocence moment, she was absolutely devastated. ‘I don’t see why not,’ I said. ‘He’s not married to anyone else. I think you will be the one.’ I really believed we had a shot with these international superstars. A year or two later, when McEnroe married Tatum O’Neal, I think a little part of me died.’
Louise Candlish, author of The Second Husband

‘Unfortunately I had a massive crush on Johnny Logan – he won the Eurovision for Ireland in 1980 with “What’s Another Year?” He wore a “fabulous” white suit and had a cutting-edge pageboy hairstyle. I remember being down in Galway on an Irish scholarship, I was eleven years old and when Johnny took to the stage, crooning the Eurovision winner, he looked into the camera, his cute pudgy face making me weak (or maybe it was just that I was up so late) and intoned in a voice dripping with sincerity, “I love you, Ireland”. I promptly burst into tears and screeched, “WE LOVE YOU TOO, JOHNNY!” The shame . . .’
Martina Reilly, author of The Summer of Secrets

‘My First Crush was on Rowdy Yates’ Hair. There, I’ve said it. The awful truth is out at last. My secret love. The Hair was thick and bouncy, yet so soft and floppy I used to fantasise that it would feel like kitten’s fur to touch. When just washed – and I was an expert at spotting when this was the case – The Hair rippled. When dirty it became as shaggy as a lion’s mane. And when wet . . . well . . . The Hair wet was Mars bars and a trip to the circus all rolled into one. My heart used to pound against my ribs to the beat of his horse’s hooves as he galloped across the range to rope those stampeding dogeys in a Rawhide storm. I used to daydream that one day Rowdy Yates would come and rescue me off the window ledge of a burning building or – best of all – from a capsized boat, just so that I could reach out and touch The Hair. I’ve watched as its owner has aged – was Rawhide really that long ago? – and mourned every single lost Hair as his forehead extended ever higher,. But still I’ve loyally watched every one of his Hair’s 56 films. It’s an addiction. OK, so he calls himself Clint Eastwood now and is talked about as a great director and fine actor. But I know – and Rowdy Yates knows – that without The Hair, he’d have been nothing’
Kate Furnivall, author of The Russian Concubine

‘One of the first famous objects of my affection was Scott Baio – I can still remember the theme music to Charles In Charge and desperately wanted to be as glamorous as Gwendolyn – his on-screen love interest. Still, I chucked him pretty quickly for Andrew McCarthy once St Elmo’s Fire came out, so it can’t have been love. I like to think I made the right choice, but it seems time hasn’t been particularly kind to either of them . . .’
Lucy Dawson, author of His Other Lover

And at Between the Sheets . . .

‘I loved Jordan Knight from New Kids on the Block. One summer my friend and I were hanging out in her garden talking about Jordan and Joey as if they were actually our boyfriends . . . little did we know her older brother was listening in!!! He will never let us live it down.’

‘My sad-but-true schoolgirl crush was on Sir Gary of Barlow. Somehow, it all made sense at the time: everyone else fancied Robbie or Mark, so I was being a bit different; Gary wrote the songs which made him deep and interesting; and being a bit on the generous side with an old man’s wardrobe, Gary didn’t have that many other fans so I felt a bit sorry for him. So I enrolled in a crash course of Take That obsession. I stuck Just Seventeen posters on my walls, I learnt all the song lyrics, I was even given a Gary doll for Christmas. But the nail in the heartthrob coffin came when the band got a bit cool and then split. Gone was the bad haircut, in came tousled highlights; gone were the doughnuts, in came the visible abs; gone were the performances simply seated at a piano, in came dancing around in bare feet, proclaiming to be the next George Michael. Where had my reliable, shambolic Gary gone? It was too much for me and I cruelly stood by and watched his solo career sink without a trace in a matter of months, without so much as buying a single . . . (but obviously I love him again now Take That are back. Woo hoo!)’    

‘My first love was Mark Owen. My sister once cut out lots of tiny pictures of him from Smash Hits and ‘laminated’ them (covered them in sellotape), and I kept them in a little box which I would take out every night before bed’

‘I used to love Gary Barlow and Ronan Keating . . . oh dear! When I was younger than that I used to tell my mum I was going to marry Philip Schofield as for some reason I was convinced Gordon the Gopher would come and live with us!’

‘“Will I ever find a man like Michael J Fox?” For a nine-year-old in love with Marty McFly, this was the only question that really mattered. Sheer pocket-sized perfection, Michael J was the ultimate catch with his big trainers, little red T-shirt and sports almanac. Oh, that’s the power of love.’

‘I was in love with Michael Ball (or do you mean this one? -- curious website ed) after seeing his young (and then fit, skinny self – honest) in Les Miserables (ah! disappointed website ed) and developed a slightly obsessive musical-theatre-going habit as a result. (Well, a bit of ‘jazz hands’ action was healthier than cigarettes and alcohol.) My infatuation reached a peak when he was favourite to win Eurovision in ’92; he narrowly missed out to Ireland (damn Johnny Logan). I took great offence and didn’t talk to my half-Irish father for a week!’ 

‘Ok ok . . . My extremely embarrassing first crush was Philip Schofield, in his Broom Cupboard and early Going Live period. It’s hard to remember his appeal now as he sits on the sofa with Fern every morning, grey-haired and more cheesy than ever, but Pip was pretty darn attractive in those days, and I never could resist a man with a cheeky pet gopher.

Posted 11/07/2008 12:23:53 by The Between the Sheets team with 1 comments.