to send a researcher to gyms and clubs to do some on-the-spot recruiting, and to place a telephone line after our Don’t Try This Alone programme. It does quite well on the early evening slot.
Any reservations Fi had regarding the number of volunteers we’d find are soon swept away. Within days of placing the adverts we are inundated with responses; they arrive by the sackful. The world, it appears, is full of those who are about to pledge love until death do them part but actually fear a much more secular separation. It was as I’d expected. They are the most depressing reads ever.
My girlfriend, Chrissie, is the sweetest, kindest, most loving woman I have ever known. I’m honoured that she accepted my proposal and agreed to he my wife. We are due to marry in four weeks’ time. We are having a big do, no expense spared. After all, you only do it once. We plan to have a large family and one day live by the sea. I love her and she loves me. She says so all the time.
Do you think she’d ever be unfaithful?
I only ask because my best mate reckons he saw her in a pub with an ex-boyfriend of hers. I’m sure it was innocent but when I asked her about it, she said he must have made a mistake…
I get married in seven weeks’ time. I love my fiancé so much and I’m sure that he loves me, pretty sure. But not absolutely certain. There was a girl he went to college with. She ditched him for an American rower. My best friend got very drunk at a dinner party last night and said some really mean things. She said that I caught him on the rebound, that he’s out of my league. I wonder-if he had the choice, would he choose me?
… I found letters, you see. Why would she keep his letters?
… When you marry you give up your past. You have to. I’m ready for it. But is he? He’s always been a bit of a one for the ladies. Nothing serious. He’s just a flirt. He can’t help himself. He doesn’t mean any harm by it. It doesn’t bother me. Too much. It’s just that my mum says that men like him never change. It’s not that there is an individual ex that I’m threatened by. To be frank there are dozens…
There are a number of psychotics. People who said they’d rather see their partner dead than unfaithful. I believe them and pass their letters on to the police.
We employ a team to trawl through the responses, but Fi and I can’t resist an occasional morbid dip into them. Although the letters are in many ways individual there is a commonality. There is a mustard ripeness of those desperate to confirm their own supremacy in their partner’s affections.
‘Do you think they’ll all look hideous?’
‘Why do you suppose that, Fi?’
‘Well, to be so desperate, so insecure?’
I throw over to her a picture of one of the letter writers. The woman in question is thirty-two, slim, blonde, elegant. She has enclosed a CV detailing that she has a first from Cambridge and a Ph.D. from Harvard. Fi looks amazed. To shake her further, I pass a photo of the fiancé. He is smart and mediocre. Fi looks bewildered.
‘He is so ordinary.’
‘Yup, to you. But to her he is a god.’
‘I don’t get it.’ She shakes her head wearily.
‘Nor do I, babe. Maybe it’s a London thing.’ I don’t believe this, but I think it might be a comfort. ‘Anyway, get her on the show.’
The team is gathering around the mountain of letters, which appear to have a magnetic force. I take advantage of their presence, ‘OK, status. Have you seen the lawyers, Jaki?’
‘Yes. We have to be extremely careful, but the terms aren’t impossible. For those who know they are being filmed and are part of the set-up we can use any footage we like, as long as the punter is informed that the tape is running. “Informing” them can be as simple as posting a notice saying cameras are in operation, and to be super-safe, we must get the guests to sign this.’ She waves a weighty document, about the thickness of the Yellow Pages. ‘The fine print will bore the proverbials off most guests and they’ll sign. You can use CCTV footage as long as the local council agrees. I’m working on clearance. Those cameras are everywhere – shops,