The date when Julie Burchill really was made of money, and Richard Madeley’s unfortunately timed break-up

Julie Burchill I’ve never really been on a date – I got with my first husband as a teenager, then married two further men one after the other. But in the very early days of courting my husband Dan (who is thirteen years younger than me) I was very keen to appear the worldly 35-year-old and when I told him ‘We’ll take a suite at the Imperial in Torquay for a week this summer – I always do that’, I was determined to show him how sophisticated I could be. We rocked up to this gorgeous hotel (it really was splendid in the 1990s) and made ourselves, ahem, at home. Then I took him to the balcony and pointed down to the deserted swimming pool: ‘Let’s go!’ Dan and I both like to drink, and I’d bought a huge bottle of vodka on the way. We drank half the bottle of Fanta from the mini bar and refilled it with vodka – half and half, really strong. You weren’t supposed to drink at the pool, so I put the plastic bottle in my handbag. We made it down to the pool, and took up our positions on prime sun-loungers. I opened my bag for a cheeky drink – and oh no, it had spilt all over my money! I was very rich in those days and, in common with many successful people of working-class origin, I’m not happy without at least £500 on my person at all times. A good half of those were now soaked in vodka and Fanta. I waited till Dan had gone to the bathroom, then hastily removed the soaked notes, put them on the lounger and lay on them. I fell asleep and when I woke up we were not alone; an unpleasant babble of entitled brats surrounded us. Disgruntled, I got up and walked towards the pool, hoping to swim off my bad mood. Then one piped up: ‘Mummy, that lady’s made of money!’ I heard Dan’s voice, sounding amused. ‘Keep still.’ I stood there while he peeled the money off of me. ‘You can go now!’ I dove in, burning with shame. Some sophisticate! That was the day I realised our relationship would only work if I conceded one important thing; Dan was the grown-up, not me. We’ve been together for nearly twenty years.   Richard Madeley

It wasn’t quite the night before Christmas, and it was party central at my journalism college.  But I was preoccupied that year. I’d been going out with a fellow student and things had pretty much gone off the boil. I wanted to finish it – I suspected she did too – but she was what my grandma would have called ‘a pistol’ and I knew there’d be fireworks.  I planned to tell her in my car as I drove her home from our last-ever date.

It was barely a twenty-minute drive through December-dark country lanes, so when I broke the news soon after we set off, I knew I’d only have a short, if intense, burst of incoming shellfire to endure.  Horribly calculating, I know, but callow youth an all that.

But as the words: ‘Look… I honestly think we should stop seeing each other’ left my lips, the engine of my treacherous Ford Anglia gave a sort of sneering cough, and died. Just bloody died on me. At midnight, in the middle of nowhere. With a volcano of incandescent rage starting to erupt next to me. ‘What?? YOU’RE breaking up with ME? You bastard…’

I tottered into the night, found a farmhouse, phoned the AA, and trudged slowly back to the fires of hell that awaited me inside the car.

The patrolman eventually found us, hours later. I’ll never forget his words when he flashed his torch on my ruined face.

‘Christ. Which d’you want me to fix first, mate? You, or the motor?’