It’s still a family joke. That when our Dad came home from his shift at the bingo one night in 1986, I marched up to him and declared: ‘Daddy, that’s a very naughty fish.’ It took Dad a moment to understand why his weirdo four-year old was being more weird than usual. Then the images flooding out of the TV set caught his attention and he realized I had flicked the channel over to an early evening showing of Jaws.

Though stated in somewhat rudimentary terms, my opinion of sharks hasn’t much changed since that night. Perhaps because we lived so close to the ocean and it was easy for my overactive, pre-teen mind to dream that our house had sunk to the bottom of the Irish sea, and that a shark would crash through my bedroom window at any moment. I was even suspicious of swimming pools for a time and that was before I sat down to a night in with Jaws 3 on DVD, a six-pack of diet coke and an over-sized Milky Bar (never let it be said I don’t know how to party).

Whatever the reason, as a rule, I still keep my toes out of the ocean with the exception of last July when I visited Cornwall with my in-laws. We were staying near St Ive’s during a heat wave and thus paddling ankle-deep in the cool Celtic Sea was relieving. The relief evaporated however when the week after our visit a 9-foot blue shark was spotted circling the bay of St Ive’s, right where I’d been paddling.

For anyone who wants to explain that the likelihood of the shark attacking me is low, you should know a shark would not have to attack me to kill me. My phobia is so intense, he or she could simply wave a fin above sea level and the sight of that alone would be enough to stop my heart.

Over the years I have tried to get this fear out of my system. I’ve written articles about films featuring the ocean, conducted in-depth research into the making of Jaws to remind myself its just a movie (and a book) and made videos about the importance of Jaws in the cinematic canon. I’ve even written poetry about how it feels to look into the black eye of a white shark but still Susan Backlinie’s screams echo in my ears.

Some of my friends have suggested I go cage diving with the creatures to overcome my fright – I refer you to the earlier paragraph about shark fins.

Although I have failed to overcome my fear during the course of the last thirty-three years, it has become a part of who I am and has spurred a fascination with all things below the surface. That fascination has prompted me to create a whole host of things I might never have created otherwise. So, what I’m saying is, fear isn’t always bad and I’ve decided I don’t really want to get over my fear of sharks.

I’m happy to stay out of their natural habitat, leave them to their bone-crunching business and admire them from just far enough away to be able to say that sharks are really quite majestic creatures. And to marvel at the idea that in some ancient civilizations, these monsters of the big screen were worshiped as gods.

Helen explores her relationship with the ocean further in her bestselling poetry debut: Water Signs.