By Liz Jones

PUBLISHED: 20:17 EST, 29 September 2012 | UPDATED: 20:17 EST, 29 September 2012


The only surprising thing about 15-year-old schoolgirl Megan Stammers running off with maths teacher Jeremy Forrest is that it doesn't happen more often. Of course an adult in a position of trust should never take advantage of his position – but I don't think anyone who has not been a teenage girl realises the extent of their sexuality, the extraordinary longing, the passion.     

At my all-girls high school – Brentwood in Essex – male teachers looked like old men, in shiny suits and ties.

I was rather keen on my  English teacher, Mr Smith – I never knew his first name! – as he was the youngest of our very few male teachers (I remember one other – Mr Cumbers, who took geography and who we  all, rather predictably, called  Mr Cucumbers).

Liz Jones is not surprised that 15-year-old schoolgirl Megan Stammers (left) ran off with maths teacher Jeremy Forrest (left)

Mr Smith seemed to pay me special attention, entering me for writing competitions. But he was too far away and grown-up for me to ever think of him as a love interest, or boyfriend material, and he smelled like an old man – tobacco, and sock.

I couldn't fantasise about him although, trust me, I tried.

I had to fantasise instead about David Cassidy, and David Essex, who were luckily too far away from my ink-stained grip to be harmed. Pop stars are a safety valve, a sponge. If you'd been, as I was, at White City for a David Cassidy concert, you would have seen that the teenage – and much younger – girl can bring down walls, policemen, any barrier to get at the object of her affection. Safety, sense and reality do not come into the equation. Love at this age is like a fever, and although the young woman is not to blame, she is dangerous, too.

Male teachers need protection, and to be given strict guidelines and protocol. I wonder if Jeremy – the subject of so much bile and whose life and career are over – was told by his superiors how to dress, speak and behave.

My generation poured all our love into pop stars and actors such as Ben Murphy on Alias Smith And Jones – I still quake when I type his name and think of his brown curls snaking on that sunburnt neck, those thick lips and the way he swung his long legs into his saddle. I've just looked at my diary from those days and I wrote: 'Oh lucky saddle. I want to creak beneath his weight!'

But the problem now is that today's male teachers look like boy band members so, of course, the affection is directed much closer to home.

Look at Jeremy, aged 30, in a hoodie, and probably trainers too. If clothes are casual then we are, too. And while the emotions in young girls haven't changed over the decades, the lines have irrevocably blurred.

I was always terrified of my teachers. I would never have spoken to them without being spoken to first. The problem is that, because we all now want to look young, and be liked and be friends with young people, the inevitable will happen.

The lengths a teenage girl will go to when she fancies a man are superhuman.

When I was doing my A-levels, I fell in love (I thought), with a law lecturer called Charles – who looked just like the pop star Paul Nicholas, with long blond hair and blue eyes. I would lie in wait for him, haunt places I thought he would frequent, spy on him and wait for his cream Beetle to turn up in the college car park.

At 18, I wore brown loons, had greasy hair and spots. I wonder if he'd have reacted differently if I'd shopped tastefully at Topshop and learned make-up skills from Cheryl Cole.

Yes, Megan seemed to wear a uniform, but look at her eyes – caked in mascara – and the pale-pink lip gloss. Which is why I found it strangely contradictory that singers from girl band The  Saturdays made an appeal to Megan to return.

It is just these types of young women – under-dressed and over-decorated – who encourage young girls to believe they are more ready for sex than they actually are. And to look much older than they really are.

This is the crucial difference between girls now and girls when I was growing up.

I looked like a child, so it was easier for a teacher not to become deluded.

And, of course, communication is different these days.

How easy it is for the shy to text instead of speak.

How juvenile are adults when using these pieces of new  technology, how quick to type smiley faces and LOLs – when  to say these things out loud is so much more difficult and damning, and out of place.