But he had never really stopped thinking about her. Sure, she wasn’t part of his everyday thoughts, but at milestones – like both his wedding days – he had to admit to himself she did come into his mind. Wondering. Wondering what if it had been Lynette he was marrying? After he’d graduated from Guy’s Hospital medical school he’d taken a post at the Bristol Royal Infirmary where he’d met and married his first wife, Elaine. The marriage had been a disaster. Within months, as he was working round the clock to build his career, Elaine, to his dismay, had fallen pregnant. But she’d had a miscarriage. In the aftermath, with Elaine in emotional turmoil and him working even harder, the marriage had disintegrated into an acrimonious divorce.

It was while the proceedings were going on that he’d seen the post in Jersey advertised and had successfully applied for it.

Then, working at the General Hospital in Jersey, he’d met Claire, and all the memories of that blissful summer’s day with the Jason Donovan song playing had come flooding back.

Marrying Claire had made him feel whole. Those first two years in their beautiful hilltop home in St Brelade, with its striking sea view, they’d been so close. So very comfortable with each other that there had been moments – when he’d had perhaps a drink too many – when he’d been tempted to share with her a dark secret from his childhood that he’d harboured for years. But, always, he’d held back.

Then the twins had come along, and their relationship had inevitably changed. Even more so when their next baby had arrived. Unlike in his previous marriage, he had now been ready for children. They completed him as a family man, but he didn’t like the feeling of being relegated to fourth place in Claire’s affections, behind the children.

Claire kept her humour even though she was stuck in the house for much of the time with needy three-year-old twins, Rhys and Amelia, and an even needier nine-month-old baby boy, Cormac – the ‘Vomit Comet’. In hindsight, three children under five was hugely stressful and had taken a toll on their relationship. He could only hope it would improve as the kids got older. But despite his misgivings, to the outside world he was the proud, happy father.

He’d seen so many friends grow apart when their children came along, and, Christ, his own parents had hardly been a shining example. He’d come to realize over the years that, far from being the glue that held relationships together, children could easily become the catalyst for their disintegration. Yet, though parents blamed the children, he knew the truth, that it was the other way around. Just like the words of that poem about your parents fucking you up.

Would he and Claire break the mould?