Ask Virginia

Virginia Ironside

Grandson’s university blues

QI’m so worried. My grandson is adamant that he doesn’t want to go to university. He’s a lovely, bright boy with a large group of friends and has got startlingly good A Levels.

But he says it’s pointless and expensive and he’d rather just get a job. He’s not academic and at the moment he’s working in a bar and has two jobs at weekends: one working in a hardware shop as an assistant and another walking people’s dogs. His parents just say it’s his choice, but I’m horrified. My mother was the first in our family to go to university, and I owe my whole career to a superb university education. How can I persuade him to change his mind? Name and address supplied

AI’m the wrong person to come to: I never went to university and I’m to this day delighted that I never did. (No, I tell a lie – I went as a mature student but, after one term, I was carted off to the Priory, having had a nervous breakdown. I, happily, never returned to formal education.) But think about it. He’s clearly got huge charm and abilities THREE jobs! He’s no slouch –and he doesn’t have a driving ambition to study a topic for which further education is essential. He doesn’t want to be a lawyer, doctor, accountant or scientist. He can live off his wits and charm. It would be far more sensible for him to find out what he’d like to do long-term by getting about a bit more and learning on the job – and earning at the same time, instead of paying for expensive lodgings in, say, Oxford and for lectures on Zoom.

You and your mother broke the family mould. Let him do the same. And good luck to him. Remember, he can go to university later if he changes his mind.

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My wife is Fag Ash Lil

QI’ve just discovered that, 30 years after stopping – 40 years ago – my wife has started smoking again. I’d thought I smelled it on her breath recently but she always denied it. When I found a cigarette stub, I confronted her again and she admitted it. She says it’s because she ‘just feels stressed now and again about getting older’ but I’m really upset. First, I don’t want her to die. Secondly, there’s the problem of second-hand smoke – and anyway it’s such a disgusting habit. And expensive. How can I get her to stop?

John, Andover

AI’m afraid you can’t. It sounds as if she smokes only outside, so don’t worry about second-hand smoke. If she pays for it, then the cost is her responsibility, not yours. As for dying, if she hasn’t already got a serious problem with her lungs, I think the chance of her dying of lung cancer after 40 years without a fag, and if she’s now smoking only occasionally, is pretty slim, but you should check this with a doctor.

Whether it’s a ‘disgusting habit’ or not is entirely subjective. Before the 1950s, some doctors thought cigarette-smoking was a healthy habit. ‘More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette,’ boasted one ad. They were wrong, of course, but, still, smoking used to be thought the height of glamour. Your wife is stressed. She’s in her seventies. It’s her one little treat. If you can’t help alleviate her stress – and who doesn’t feel stressed about growing old? – can’t you give her a break?

Please email me your problems at problempage@theoldie.co.uk; I will answer every email – and let me know if you’d like your dilemma to be confidential.

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