The Cleethorpes Guide for Single Men

Jem Clarke is in his very, very early fifties, is five foot zero inches tall and has never left the family home in Cleethorpes, which he shares with his parents…

Newly separated friends are like musicals. I love them but they always go on far too long.

Halfway through a story, you know exactly how it’s going to pan out. You pretend to listen but, secretly inside, you’re just making plans, trying not to nod off and wondering if Sainsbury’s own-brand Serrano is half-decent.

I drifted off when my newly separated college pal Johnno explained the early ‘warning signs’ in his marriage: almost a decade earlier, Wendy, the wife, had refused to go on a day trip to Doncaster to watch exterior filming scenes for the TV show Still Open All Hours.

As he’d explained, ‘You’re seeing David Jason act for free and there’s a Spar right opposite that does a preprepared salad for a pound.’

From then on, I had a hunch that the story would end with Wendy, years later, making a connection with someone else.

It turned out to be a made-up mystic, Ryan, who ran ‘firewalk therapy’ sessions on the beach. ‘Firewalk to a new you’ was his promise. ‘Firewalk to Ryan’s boxsized maisonette, dye your hair trafficlight red and be seen some months later sniffling in Iceland as Ryan’s business credit card is refused’ was the reality according to a friend of Johnno’s.

A new wave of modish exercise classes has led to liberated ladies realising husbandless hours were their favourite times of the week. In my own social circle, there have been four splits due to the Reebok Step massacre, two to spinning and one to Zumba.

This is not a critique of exercise classes or firewalking Wendy. Faced with the choice of watching David Jason’s stunt double up a ladder or running into the arms of a charismatic figure in neon leisurewear, who wouldn’t prefer samba steps?

The newly single then hound me on how to live the bachelor life. How do you pull off an outfit bought solely from items bought at Peacocks? Which fast-food restaurants can you dine alone in without youngsters’ throwing sugar sachets at your ears?

Two Roberts who lost their long-terms to spinning ended up living together in an Odd Couple set-up. They left me alone to my blissful box-setting and other hobbies beloved by the loaferati.

That’s my new solution: pairing up the lovelorn.

Johnno was still banging on about his ex-wife: ‘She won a meat raffle but gave it all to her sister’s dogs. No consultation with me – just a meatless fridge. I sat in the downstairs toilet and cried for the first time in weeks over that.’

All I could think was how he would be a good match for Gavin. Gavin had recently come home to a note which the poor sap found ‘actually quite nice – cos she normally just texts me if it’s bad news’.

Both men loved talking about French cuisine, but they were less keen on the cooking element. Looking at their BJI (body-to-jelly index), I could see they were walking the tightrope of time towards an inevitable diabetes diagnosis.

I asked them both to come round and get a McGuffin off a high shelf for me. I am a short man, currently on a locally well-publicised stepladder ban – on a trumped-up charge my mother cooked up: ‘verticular ineptitude and reckless endangerment of least useful parent’.

The two men smelt no rats. They were soon sipping an impromptu Bovril and sharing love-and-war stories.

My plotting came to nothing. When I asked Gavin what he thought of Johnno, he texted back the two most painful words available in the SMS universe: ‘Not keen’.

Gavin had a point. Johnno did go on a lot about his endlessly postponed charity walk to save the beavers (don’t know if it’s furry ones or pretend scouts). He also refused to do a bit of light dusting while fiddling about with my top shelf. I thought it was good practice for the recently wifeless.

Still, the two Roberts’ bromance has gone from strength to strength. They have both retrained as hot-yoga instructors. The poachers have turned guru gamekeepers.

They are currently preying on the low-hanging fruit of the 11 o’clock Seniors Stretch into the Weekend class.