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SMOOCHER: Stephen Smerdon.
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Found: Cherie Blair's first kiss

Ben Rooth
29/ 9/2005

THE first boy to kiss Cherie Blair has told of their romantic encounter.

And Stephen Smerdon admitted: "This has been under the closet for 30-odd years and for some stupid reason it has resurfaced now because of her saying this."

The Prime Minister's wife, who was born in Bury, revealed their secret while she toured stands at Labour's conference in Brighton yesterday.

Viewing a computer mapping system on the Ordnance Survey stall, she asked to see a map of the Liverpool street she moved to from Bury.

Famous

Pointing out the local park on the map, she said: "That's the first time I was kissed, at the age of seven, by a boy called Stephen Smerdon under the railway bridge."

Mr Smerdon, who now runs a pub called the Bull Inn, in Whitwell, Hertfordshire, told the M.E.N.: "We were together from birth near enough.

"I used to live at 4 Ferndale Road, Waterloo, and Cherie used to live at number 13 or 15 and she had a famous father.

"Basically I fell in love with her but it didn't come to anything. She lived in the same street as me until I left when I was 17. I had better not go any further."

Yesterday Mr Smerdon, 50, was very happy to kiss wife Claire, 40, at the pub they have run for four years. Claire said they had been married for 13 years.

Cherie's famous father was actor Tony Booth who starred in Till Death Do Us Part and was later married to Coronation Street actress Pat Phoenix.

Pretty

Mr Smerdon's sister Sally Anne confirmed that her brother had been responsible for Cherie's first kiss.

She said: "Steve often talks about it. Cherie was so pretty, all the boys liked her."

The Smerdons' father Denis taught her at primary school in Waterloo. Last year, Cherie nominated the late teacher, who died in 2001, for a project to recognise the achievements of people in Merseyside.

The families have remained in contact over the years.

Cherie failed a geography test at Manchester Airport's Brighton stall, placing Humberside Airport in south Lincolnshire and Bournemouth Airport in Sussex.