The first question the head asked was "What can you teach beside music?"

"I'm only trained to teach music" was my naive reply.

"That doesn't mean a thing. I could employ you as head of science if I wanted" she retorted.

So, (in the days of a severe shortage of teachers) I left music college to teach English, Italian, games - oh and a bit of music - at a secondary modern for girls in the fens.

As a complete newcomer I was grateful when the head of English took me under his wing and showed me the ropes. He was a gentle, kindly father figure well liked and respected by staff and girls.

I was invited to the local pub with him and other colleagues and, eventually, he took me home and introduced me to his wife.

We got on well and it was suggested that I move into their spare room the following year.

Then it happened.

His wife was at a meeting. I was making a curry and he suddenly came into the kitchen and kissed me in a far from fatherly fashion.

It came as a shock. I'd always thought of him as the dad I'd never known (my parents separated when I was still a baby and divorce took seven years in those days) and he was more than twenty years my senior.

But I didn't want to hurt his feelings. At the same time, I was still, strictly speaking, a virgin, and curious to find out what sex was really like.

To cut a long story short, we did go to bed eventually, but it was a complete disaster. He was not a good lover and my heart wasn't in it.

I can't remember how it all came out into the open but the last term was a surreal mess. His wife had offered me a job at her school in Norfolk and I had accepted. But once the 'affair' came to light I felt I couldn't work for her. They both insisted that I should and he refused to discuss my anxieties. In fact, he avoided me like the plague.

With my notice already handed in, no job and no-one to turn to I applied for posts at schools nearby but I was in such a state that I broke down at the interview and confessed all.

The official from County Hall summoned my 'lover' immediately and he arrived half an hour later with his wife and a letter of resignation.

I don't know what went on behind closed doors but he didn't have to give up his job. He drove my car and his wife took me home in her's. She was extremely sympathetic and assured me that everything would be fine if I took up the post at her school.

Of course, I hardly saw him, even at school, for the last few weeks of term and I did go and teach infants at his wife's school the following September. Needless to say we never referred to the affair again.

Looking back, the whole incident seems completely incomprehensible, even allowing for the fact that I must have been pretty stupid at that time.

And I'm not sure that I've improved with age.