CHERIE Blair became embroiled in a kiss-and-tell expose yesterday.
As she toured the exhibition stalls at Labour's annual conference in Brighton, the prime minister's wife revealed the time and place of her first kiss - at the age of seven.
She appears to have been lucky. It was a memorable event. She could even recall the identity of her childhood sweetheart and had welcomed his father, Denis, to Number 10 after her husband became prime minister.
Viewing a computer mapping system on the Ordnance Survey stall at the conference, the prime minister's wife asked if she could use it to display the Liverpool street on which she grew up.
Not only did she find her home, she pointed out the local park where she had often played as a child.
Mrs Blair said: "That's the first time I was ever kissed, at the age of seven by a boy called Stephen Smerdon under the railway bridge."
Mr Smerdon, who runs a pub in Hertfordshire, was soon tracked down. Now 50, he has been married to wife Claire, 40, for 13 years.
The Smerdons grew up in the same street as Mrs Blair.
Sallyanne, Stephen's sister, said: "Steve often talks about it.
Cherie was so pretty, all the boys liked her."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article