I’VE always loved Punchestown in the spring, but like Romeo’s passion for Juliet, ours was a forbidden love.

It wasn’t my parents who put the kybosh on the budding romance - my late father was more than happy to indulge my latent interest in horse racing, as it gave him an audience for stories about the greats of yesteryear, a companion for an afternoon in front of the television watching the old ITV7, and ideally someone who could flick between that and the BBC in the days when the sport was a TV staple.

No, it wasn’t parental disapproval which kept Punchestown and me apart, it was, ironically enough, the television itself. The problem with living halfway up a picturesque glen in Co Antrim was that we were unable to get decent reception from the Divis transmitting station, but found that we had no such problems picking up a Scottish signal, presumably from Rosneath.

So it was that the commentary of my childhood was largely provided by gentlemen like Jim Montford and Glen Michael. We still got the English racing, of course, and now in glorious technicolour, but my only access to Irish meetings was by looking at cards and reading results in The Irish News, which I did avidly.

Occasionally I’d be able to catch a radio commentary with my cousin John, although that almost always entailed him providing his own simultaneous commentary, which would have been bearable had it involved the same horses, but John’s party trick was calling the same mythical three-runner race involving Night Nurse, Day Nurse and Majestic Nurse.

In fairness to him, the finishing order was often different, and he put some effort into mimicking the style of Peter O’Sullevan, but the shtick wore thin after a while.

Nonetheless, it was worth enduring to pick up the odd broadcast and Punchestown had a habit of falling during the Easter holidays. That wasn’t the case for my first memory of the Punchestown Festival, which was that glorious match race in which Dawn Run beat Champion Chase hero Buck House, a race I was forced to enjoy vicariously, but one that seems seared in the memory nonetheless.

It was 1987 when I listened to my first live broadcast, having managed to sneak a small bet on local hope Eddie Wee, trained just up the road from us by Billy Rock and ridden by Conor O’Dwyer, in the Motor Import Handicap Chase.

The radio commentary suggested that second was the best we could hope for heading to the last, but Fred Winter’s English raider Hazy Sunset came down at the final fence when leading, leaving Eddie Wee clear for a famous win and sparking jubilant scenes in my cousins’ kitchen.

As an aside, there really is something about the nature of good radio commentary which enhances the listener’s experience, and I also have a memory of tremendous euphoria after listening to Barry McGuigan defeat Eusebio Pedroza at Loftus Road a few months before.

Eddie Wee was a decent horse, and the Motor Import Chase a valuable prize for the wily Mr Rock to snaffle, albeit fortuitously, but it says much for the development of Punchestown as a meeting that the race has been upgraded in both status and quality, and Fox Norton added to the illustrious roll of honour for what is now the Punchestown Champion Chase with his thrilling win over Un De Sceaux on Tuesday.

Indeed, even though I’m writing this with two days of action at the meeting yet to unfold, it’s hard to imagine a more thrilling renewal of this historic meeting, with several races which have outmatched Cheltenham for quality and drama, none more so than the three-way-battle between Sizing John, Djakadam and Coneygree, which will be remembered as the real Gold Cup of 2017, while the Stayers’ Hurdle rematch between Unowhatimeanharry and Nichols Canyon was undeniably more compelling than the dress rehearsal at Prestbury Park.

I’m jealous of the friends and colleagues who have enjoyed such high-octane action at first hand this year, and while I’m lucky that modern technology affords me the opportunity to witness the spectacle perfectly from the convenience of my kitchen table, I can’t help but feel it would be even better with an old transistor radio, rather than a laptop. I can always close my eyes, I suppose.