For the wife in particular, everything’s suddenly new and unfamiliar, her spongebag and flannel, new pigskin luggage, a whole trousseau of new clothes, dazzling white underwear instead of the usual dirty grey — even her name is new.

The thing to remember is that your wife/husband is probably as nervous and in need of reassurance as you are, like the wild beast surprised in the jungle who’s always supposed to be more frightened than oneself.

SABOTEURS

The first thing to do on arrival at your honeymoon hotel is to search the bedroom for signs of sabotage. Jokey wedding guests may well have instructed the hotel staff to make you an apple pie bed, or wire up the springs of the bed to the hotel fire alarm.

One couple I know reached their hotel to be confronted by the manager waving a telegram from one such joker, saying: ‘My wife has just run off with my best friend, I believe they are booked into your hotel under the assumed name of Mr and Mrs So and So. Could you refuse to let them have the booked room until I arrive?’ Whether you’re heading for the Bahamas or Billericay, the best way to scotch honeymoon saboteurs is not to be coy about your destination. Simply tell everyone you’re staying at the Grand and then book rooms at the Majestic.

Then there’s the problem of getting used to living together. Here again the wife in particular will be worried about keeping up appearances. Before marriage she’s relied on mud packs and rollers and skinfood at night, but now her husband’s going to be with her every moment of the day, and the mystery’s going to be ruined. When’s she going to find time to shave her legs? And she’s always told her husband she’s a natural blonde, and suddenly he’s going to find the home-bleacher in her suitcase.