Which saddened you more: the 25th anniversary of the mass murder of 3,000 civilians, including ten Australians, or the death from natural causes of a single octogenarian American singer? If you ticked Box A, check your pants for flames. Despite the fact that all Australian Gen Z-ers were born a decade after Dolly Parton last topped the charts, most can name two or three of her songs. But according to the New York Times, very few Americans under the age of forty can name even one of the 19 men who flew those planes into those buildings. I suppose it makes a difference if you knew any of the deceased personally, and I didn’t know anybody who died on 9/11. But I was once very close to Dolly.

After I moved to Sydney in 1986, the advertising agency which had hired me were kind enough to put me up in a smart hotel for a month. The Sebel Town House was where every big name in the music business stayed in those days, and by the end of my first week there I’d shared the lift with Elton John, Joe Jackson and Susie Quatro. But at twenty-six I was far too cool to show that I recognised rock stars and would certainly never have tried to start a conversation.

The Sebel didn’t have a pool, but it did have a little rooftop jacuzzi, and I got into the habit of sitting in it at the end of the day, when I was pretty sure I’d have it to myself. But one evening I stepped out onto the decking and saw, spilling over one side of the little elevated tub, a mass of very curly, very blonde hair. At least it’s a girl, I thought, as I took off my towel and adjusted my board shorts. Unsure of hot-tub etiquette, I kept it simple. ‘Mind if I join you?’ I murmured, lowering myself into the bubbles. ‘Be mah guest,’ she replied, and then I saw her face and lost my cool completely.

‘You’re Dolly Parton!’ I said, as if she needed reassuring on this point. ‘Yes I am!’ she laughed, ‘and I love how you say mah name. What’s yours?’ I told her, and she said it was nice to meet me, and we shook wet hands and chatted. Right there, under the spangled velvet canopy of a Sydney summer night. Me and Dolly Parton. In a jacuzzi. Just the four of us.

Reluctant at first to talk about herself she wanted to know why I’d come to Australia, and if I was missing my family in England. Then she told me how much she missed her own family when she travelled, and that it was easier when she toured with Kenny Rogers because he was one of her closest friends. I told her I was a fan of his, too, and she asked if I’d be at the Entertainment Centre the following night, and I confessed that I didn’t have a ticket but promised to buy one in the morning. She said I’d be lucky because the show had sold out.  She was beautiful, and charming, and funny and – in the most important sense – completely natural, and I would have been happy to sit in that jacuzzi with her for the rest of my life. But all too soon she said she had to go. Then she stepped out of the bubbles and into her bathrobe and headed for the lift, turning once to flash me a smile which punched me in the heart.

Before I left for work the next day I watched the woman I was in love with being interviewed by Kerri-Anne Kennerley on Good Morning Australia. I had already resolved to ask the Sebel’s concierge – who had a reputation for being able to procure anything – to get me a ticket to the show, whatever it cost. And I couldn’t wait to tell my new workmates about my rooftop encounter. But then it occurred to me that they might not believe me. I mean, sharing a jacuzzi with Dolly Parton? What had I been smoking? By the time I left my room I was thinking it might be best to keep my Dolly tryst a secret.

But as I was crossing the lobby one of the receptionists called me over and handed me an envelope. On the outside was my Christian name, in biro, and inside were two tickets folded in a sheet of hotel notepaper. There was nothing on the notepaper except the briefest of handwritten notes; Enjoy the show. And a big red lipstick kiss.