If there was ever to be a sequel to popular 1980s romantic comedy film When Harry Met Sally the makers could do a lot worse than call it When Katy Met Jamie.

Katy and Jamie Dundas first met when they were members of the same Great Britain junior diving squads in the 1980s - a journey that saw them both become national champions in the sport.

As teenagers, they weren’t great friends but like all good stories it has a happy ending because they have been married for 17 years and have two children, Wyatt, 12, and Abby, 10, who are as talented in their chosen sports as they were in theirs.

Katy was born in Cheltenham 45 years ago and is the daughter of well-known Cheltenham Rugby Combination stalwart Pete Shortell, whose work as a civil servant took him and his family to the US for a number of years.

“I first went to the US when I was four,” Katy told The Local Answer. “We were based in Washington and I started doing gymnastics while I was out there.

“My mum noticed that I was quite good at it and I carried on doing gymnastics when I came back to this country when I was seven.”

It was a sport she would continue to enjoy for the next three years before her potential as a diver was first spotted.

“It’s a fairly natural progression from gymnastics to diving,” said Katy. “You’re doing somersaults in both sports and quite a lot of divers start off as gymnasts for that reason.”

Katy was not afraid to jump in at the deep end as she swapped the floor and vault at Gloucester Beaufort Gym Club for the water at Pittville Pool where she came under the guidance of diving coach Dave Turner, who played such a big part in the early success of Leon Taylor, one of Cheltenham’s celebrated sons.

London-based Taylor, who was coached by Ian Barr when he won silver in the synchronised diving at the 2004 Olympics, is six years younger than Katy but the two are good friends.

“He’s like a fun uncle to my kids,” said Katy. “He always comes round to see us when he’s in Cheltenham.”

Katy also built up a close friendship with fellow diver Olivia Clark who was another who prospered under Turner’s tutelage. So much so that she represented Wales in the Auckland Commonwealth Games in 1990.

Katy, too, enjoyed great success, winning multiple national titles in the 3-metre springboard.

Her dad’s work would take her back to the US when she was 16 and she spent a couple of years at High School in Maryland before heading off to Louisiana University where she was offered and accepted a full scholarship.

England still had a hold on her, though, and she was clocking up the air miles as she returned regularly to compete in the national championships and link up with the GB junior squads.

“I remember coming back five times one year,” she chuckled. “It was pretty hectic.”

She also remembers being named captain of one of the junior squads that met in Frankfurt in 1990 and it not going down well with her husband-to-be, who was a Londoner and trained at Crystal Palace.

“He didn’t like it at all,” she laughed. “He was three years younger than me but even so I don’t think he liked me being captain because I was a girl.

“I’m not sure why I was made captain, I think it was because I was 18 and was probably the oldest.

“I wasn’t a very good captain and it didn’t help that I was based in the US and people didn’t really know me.”

Her leadership skills may have been questioned but there was no doubt in her own mind - and many others’ - that she was on course for a place in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.

It was then, though, that disaster struck.

“I hurt my back before the Olympic trials,” she recalls. “It was a stress fracture and as you can imagine I was pretty upset about it. I was 20 and thought, ‘What am I going to do?’.”

What she did do was turn her back on competing in the sport that had been such a big part of her life for so long. She admits now that she “should have carried on”.

Jamie, too, could have been an Olympic diver. “If you ask him, he’d say that wasn’t an ambition but he was incredibly good,” said Katy of the 10m highboard specialist, who like his future wife, stopped competing at the age of about 20.

“In those days, there wasn’t the Lottery funding that there is now so it was much more difficult to commit to diving and work as well. But he came fifth in the world championships in 1997 which is pretty amazing.”

Jamie continued to dive professionally in exhibition events, however, and once he and Katy became an item he persuaded Katy to put a swimsuit on again and do ‘show diving’ with him.

“We both went to Hong Kong, Canada and California doing High Dive shows - professional diving basically. This time, however, he was the captain,” she laughed.

Jamie also got involved with the Red Bull diving.

“They jump off these high, high boards - up to 30 metres,” Katy said. “They go to places like Croatia and Thailand and build towers on bridges and cliffs and then just dive off them.

“It’s very popular. They do triple somersaults and twists but they have to go in feet first otherwise they’d do too much damage to themselves.”

All the diving has taken its toll on Jamie who had to have back surgery and was told five years ago that “he had the spine of a 60-year-old!”.

Katy coached a bit in the US after she stopped competing but these days her only real involvement is helping to organise diving reunions.

The first one was held at Cheltenham Park Hotel four years ago and after another one in Birmingham in 2015 a third is planned for Cheltenham in October.

“The diving community is like a family,” she said, “it’s very close. Tom Daley came to the last one and he’s hopefully coming to the one in October.

“He’s a real sweetheart. He’s such a humble kid and is just excited to be around other divers.”

Katy’s and Jamie’s children have both had a taste of diving but it is in other sports that they are excelling.

“We put them in the pool straight away,” said Katy. “They’re really good swimmers and have competed in lots of galas. Both of them dived off the 3m board but it was clear it wasn’t for them and we weren’t going to force them to do it.”

Much of Wyatt’s sporting energy is focused on his rugby where he is thriving as a fly-half or centre at Crypt School and Old Patesians.

“He loves it,” said Katy. “He’s the captain and he’s a tackling demon, he just doesn’t stop. He’s a little super star.”

Wyatt has already had a taste of what it’s like on the biggest rugby stage because he was invited to be a ball carrier when England played Samoa at Twickenham just before the 2015 World Cup.

He was back at the home of English rugby in May as one of the Old Pats team presented to the crowd before the Aviva Premiership final after winning the Land Rover Cup in the season just ended.

Abby, meanwhile, was a county junior tennis player up until the age of nine before turning her attention to other sports which include netball with Old Chelts, athletics with Cheltenham Harriers, cross-country, tag rugby at Holy Apostles School and cricket at Charlton Kings Cricket Club.

Wyatt also plays cricket with Charlton Kings, the club which is just a big six-hit from the family home. He also does athletics and runs cross-country so sport continues to play a huge part in Katy and Jamie’s life.

“We’re always out and about watching the children play sport,” said Katy. “We love it. It’s their turn now and it’s great fun.”