Not love at first sight, but something even better

'A man sat opposite me, holding a copy of the paper – I realised it was my childhood sweetheart'

Publication of the first issue of the Independent in 1986 (Rex )

In October 1986 – a few days after the first edition of The Independent hit the newsstands – I was travelling home to Sussex from London to see my family on a rickety, unreliable Saturday afternoon train.

At Gatwick Airport, a man got in and sat opposite me, holding a copy of The Independent. After a few moments, I realised that it was my childhood sweetheart, the boy who I’d gone out with as a teenager, but not seen since we’d left school and gone our separate ways.

As he folded the pages, he looked up and recognised me too. He told me he lived in Paris, that this was the first time he’d come back to England in three years.

The only reason he was on this particular train, at this particular time, was that he’d been determined to buy a copy of the new broadsheet he’d heard about, The Independent. If he hadn’t, if he’d caught the earlier train, we never would have met one another again.

Reader, I married him. Now, 30 years later – with two children, 10 novels, six plays, two non-fiction works, a volume of poetry, a collection of short stories and a dog between us – we are still happily married, living back in Sussex, growing older together. All because of him going in search of The Independent and catching that train. Independent, we owe you.

Kate Mosse is a novelist and dramatist