Status Anxiety: My wife is a tough cookie

24 September 2011

Toby Young suffers from Status Anxiety

As winter approaches, with snow forecast for next month, I’m anticipating a massive row with my wife. The problem is that Caroline refuses to switch the central heating on before the first day of winter, which falls on 22 December. It doesn’t matter if temperatures plummet to below zero in the interim. ‘Put on an extra jumper,’ is her standard response. As far as she’s concerned, anyone who turns the central heating on before winter has officially arrived is a big girl’s blouse.

I sometimes wonder if this is the legacy of having gone to Cheltenham Ladies’ College. As Evelyn Waugh pointed out, anyone who has been to a British public school has no difficulty coping with privations in later life, including prison. It’s those who were brought up in ‘the gay intimacy of the slums’ that struggle to cope with physical hardship. Listening to Caroline’s tales of life in Lower College, with its indescribable food and windswept dormitories, it’s as though she was a human guinea pig in some ghastly psychological experiment. It turned her into one tough cookie.

But the lion’s share of the blame rests with her mother. A vegetarian like Caroline, Rosemary would much prefer to eat a cold baked potato in front of Midsomer Murders than sit through the 18-course tasting menu at Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons. She considers any form of wastage almost sinful. Her fridge, with its different-sized Tupperware boxes piled on top of each other, looks like a Damien Hirst exhibit.

On balance, this intolerance of any form of extravagance is an excellent quality in a wife and I commend Rosemary for passing it on. When I first proposed to Caroline, I produced a diamond ring from my back pocket, but she was unimpressed. Four months later, when I popped the question again, I’d returned the sparkler to the jewellers — and this time she said she’d think about it. When she eventually agreed, I asked her if she wanted me to get the ring back but she said she’d prefer me to spend the money on something practical like a large double bed. ‘That’s my girl,’ I thought.

With a couple of minor lapses, Caroline has maintained this parsimonious attitude throughout our marriage. I was slightly taken aback when she decided to spend £2,000 on a wedding dress, but relieved when she stuck it on eBay on the first day of our honeymoon.

I was shocked when she suggested a ‘luxury holiday’ earlier this year. Turned out she meant a trip to Blackberry Wood, a ‘glampsite’ in East Sussex. Her idea of retail therapy is a trip to Makro, an industrial cash-and-carry in Park Royal. Earlier this week she came home with a boot-full of lavatory rolls. (I’m not making that up.)

But she can be a little hard-headed. For one thing, she has the bedside manner of Doctor Crippen. I could be in the final stages of esophageal cancer, hooked up to a ventilator and a drip, and she’d still be convinced I had ‘man flu’. Woe betide the sickly child who appears at the breakfast table in pyjamas claiming to be too ill to go to school. ‘Don’t be pathetic,’ she’ll say.

Then there are the arctic temperatures in our house throughout November and most of December. We all end up wearing so many sweaters we look like a family of Michelin Men and watching television in the evening is only possible under a large pile of blankets, helpfully donated by her mother. I have literally scraped the frost off our bedroom window to see what kind of day it is. When we have people over for dinner, they are initially baffled by the fact that every dish is served under a large tea cosy. But the truth eventually dawns and they end up huddled round the candles on the dining-room table. They rarely come for a second time.

I have a shed at the bottom of the garden where I go to try to work and there’s a tiny fan heater hidden behind a pile of books that I sometimes switch on when my fingers are too cold to type. Caroline doesn’t know about this and I dread the day when she finds out. ‘Don’t be pathetic,’ she’ll say, as she rips the plug out of the wall and stalks off to find the nearest skip. I will have to sit there shivering until I eventually succumb to pneumonia — or ‘man flu’, as Caroline will call it. That’s my girl.

Toby Young is associate editor of The Spectator.

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Trevor Chenery

September 22nd, 2011 6:13pm Report this comment

Buy a log burning stove.
Forage for wood on walks on Ealing Common.

Johnjohn

September 23rd, 2011 10:27pm Report this comment

I think you're right to be anxious about your status.

RichardW

September 27th, 2011 8:23am Report this comment

Come on Toby, 22 Decemebr is midwinter- the first day of winter is 45 days before this. Tell Caroline.

D Short

September 29th, 2011 9:41am Report this comment

You can't burn the wood till next winter when it has dried out. That's why it's called 'seasoned'.

It will just smoulder and give out a lot of smoke otherwise.

Irascible Old Git

September 29th, 2011 11:05am Report this comment

Just as well your missus doesn't read these columns, otherwise they'd be a fan heater posted up on eBay with immediate effect.

Graphite

September 29th, 2011 11:37pm Report this comment

How can winter, or any other season, have an official starting day?

The notion is patently absurd. Seasons begin when they begin, simple as that.

Ran

February 13th, 2012 8:31am Report this comment

patently absurd that seasons have a start date?!!
do you know what planet you live on?
that's really not a mild insult either, really do you know the planet, the bit of it you reside on and how it's movement about the sun (the big hot yellowy thing in the sky) affects whether you can or can't dig the tubers out of the mud for tea. good grief, if you really think it's that absurd then the survival of the human race for so long must be an awesome idea for you!

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