RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31760, 17 August 1968, Page 22

RANDOM REMINDER

BRIDEGROOM OF THE YEAR

Dotted about the country, spending their radiance into the dark recesses of New Zealand life, are members of a very small, select and special class of splendid womanhood: current and recent winners of the brides of the year contests. There are not many such competitions, and winning them is extremely difficult. Those who succeed are invariably magnificent creatures ravishingly beautiful, extraordinarily talented in the arts and in the domestic sciences, personality girls with charm and wit. They are also, as a rule, kind to animals. But does anyone ever give a thought to their husbands? These poor devils have the task of

Sisyphus thrust upon them. When a girl can keep a home looking like something from a glossy magazine, nip out and do her Red Cross work, produce a gorgeous fourcourse meal, then rush off to play the leading role in the local operatic society’s production, all in the one day, it is only natural for people to expect the young husband to measure up. So almost overnight, a poor bemused idiot, whose only claim to fame is a snooker break of 18, is expected to become a manly figure from “Popular Mechanics,” the industrious smiling central character in the do-it-yourself features, the gallant and polished escort, of his bewitching wife, and a breadwinner who can also pro-

vide some jam. He must wonder if he will ever learn to recite in the Greek at his wife’s afternoon parties, to knock up a wrought iron fence out of old beer cans, and to design his wife’s extensive spring ensemble. That’s only a start, of course. We have only known one bride erf the year, and she was everything she should have been (see para. II). Her husband was a very pleasant young fellow. But we wonder how they are getting along. The day they were due back from their honeymoon, he was committed to play in a golf tournament of some consequence. And that surely must have coincided with his first scheduled appearance as a landscape gardener?