I tried to explain to him that I felt there was an imbalance between us. He was horrified to think he might have done anything to offend me, and I did my best to make it clear that I wasn’t offended, but that I felt he was keeping secrets from me, rather than with me. I asked him if he’d send me a photo, or tell me his first name at least, since he’d known my full name for a while, as well as the names of my husband and children. He said I had every right to ask, and apologized for his fears and his caginess. He kept saying, “Just give me a bit longer to get my head around it. I just need another few days. It’s a big step.”

I tried to be patient. I was in no doubt that he loved me—that helped. Adam loved me too, but he wasn’t obsessed in the way King Edward quite clearly was. Adam has never been obsessed with me in that way. He’s more of a stable, low-key kind of person, not one to go over the top emotionally about anything. King Edward was the opposite. He wrote more than once that he would die for me without a second thought. I know I should have been firmer with him and insisted on seeing a photo and knowing his name, but I was bowled over by him in every way. His obvious hunger for me—limited though it was—had obliterated all my defenses.

Of course, he could have sent me any photo, couldn’t he? He could have told me any name. And, eventually, he did.

I was thrilled and relieved when, in October 2011, he finally said he’d decided he wanted to be more open with me. He’d hidden his identity, he told me, because he was famous. He was someone I would know of, someone I might not have entirely positive feelings about. It was this, he confessed, rather than any worries about his looks, that had made him reluctant to allow me any closer. I teased him, saying things like “Are you a famous mass murderer?” and “Are you George Osborne?” No, he said, he was none of those, but he was as unpopular in certain quarters as “George Osborne at a Socialist Worker Party rally.” After a bit more cat-and-mouse teasing of this sort, he finally told me: he was Damon Blundy, Daily Herald columnist—loudmouth, rabble-rouser, troublemaker.

I’d read one or two of Damon Blundy’s columns in the past, and I certainly didn’t hate him. I didn’t have any opinion about him. I’d always assumed that most newspaper columnists say any old thing that comes into their heads to provoke a bit of controversy, whether they really believe it or not.