Yes, builders DO make the best husbands!

says LUCY CAVENDISH, whose terribly manly, can-do partner puts office-bound metrosexuals to shame

Nearly two years ago, I married Nick. There are many reasons why I married him: he is kind, witty, handsome and loyal. But more than that, I married him because he’s a builder.

That’s not quite as calculated as it might seem at first. I didn’t get spliced to him because I thought he was going to prop up my gable end or re-grout my joints. I married him because I love him. But I have to say, being the Mrs of a builder has definite advantages.

Take faithfulness. according to a survey released last week, builders are one of the most loyal breeds of men.

a study by Stockholm University found that builders are less likely to stray outside their marriages than men who do other less ‘manly’ jobs, where the workforce is a more equal balance of women and men.

apparently, builders stay faithful because they work around other men, which means they get an outlet for all that male badinage and less opportunity to eye up colleagues.

Divorce rates are actually lower among builders than they are in offices, say, where women outnumber men.

and it’s true, there is something deeply reassuring about being with a builder. Builders exude a cool, calm, capable confidence. They are handy and useful and they can fix things and make things good.

When the tiles on the roof of my ancient home started falling off, rather than looking at them, wringing his hands and then hiring the nearest ( expensive) roofer despite the exorbitant quote (as many of my exes were wont to do), a builder surveys the roof.

The builder then makes himself a cup of tea, rolls himself a cigarette — all builders smoke rollies in my experience — then sits down and ruminatively strokes his chin. There is no point in rushing my 59-year-old builder. He needs to take time. He needs to think.

HE ofTeN says: ‘ let me think, lucy’ as I am cantering on the spot, frothing at the bit, insisting on an answer on how to fix it now, now, now!

He’ll have another rollie and think some more. Then he’ll get a pad and start drawing intricate sketches. eventually, he will say: ‘I know how to fix it.’

Most of the time, he does. He fixes it. Problem solved.

When it’s all over, he’ll sit down proudly and say: ‘I’m a man of my word.’ Then he will roll another cigarette. and, yes, it is all terribly manly, which in itself can set the pulse racing. Builders can chop logs, make fires, fix heating systems. all I have to do is let my husband do it.

When he worries about telling people he’s a builder because, apparently, some people look down on it, I remind him he is, in fact, a Master Builder. He’s not just some run- of-the-mill bloke, who puts up a dodgy extension then scarpers. He loves the buildings he works on. He renovates them lovingly and sympathetically.

Many moons ago, he was on location, location, location, advising on knock-throughs and kitchen extensions.

a building site is (still) a male space — and a multi-national one. My husband (above) has worked alongside Poles, Georgians, romanians, Colombians, Sudanese and albanians. every time I’ve been on-site, I’ve been struck by the camaraderie.

on rare occasions, the banter gets out of hand and they’re rude to each other. once or twice, this has teetered on fisticuffs, but, essentially, it is a space where a bloke gets to be a bloke in a good-humoured way.

My friends often tell me they are rather envious of me being married to a builder.

He always looks rugged and I find his practical skills really rather sexy. I love his big, broad hands and his capable shoulders, and I love it when he fixes things for me.

I know he does it because he loves me. I’m not the only one who finds him attractive, though. Many women in the area call him up, asking him to come and look at their sash window problem or get rid of a wasps’ nest.

In the summer, he went to help a local woman and ended up almost falling off her roof having been stung 32 times.

When I went round to chastise him for being so careless around wasps, the woman was having none of it. ‘He’s so helpful and charming,’ she gushed.

I also have a friend, Patricia, who is married to a builder, and though they have their ups and downs, she’s never worried about him flirting with another woman because he’s basically surrounded by men covered in cement all day long.

once, when Patricia lost her wedding ring down the sink, her husband literally went down into the drain and retrieved it, covered in filth. She has never found him sexier.

In fact, I think this is why women find builders sexy. They can actually do things.

another friend dumped her metrosexual TV executive boyfriend when, on a romantic country holiday in Somerset, ‘he went outside to make some kindling and I found him trying to chop the log horizontally’.

When she told me this, my husband burst out laughing.

‘What kind of a man can’t chop kindling?’ he asked, astounded, citing it as grounds for divorce.

one of my exes, according to his mother, had totally redecorated the family home. However, whenever I waved a paintbrush at him, he went ashen and said he had no idea how to paint or fix anything.

I’m one of those women who has always done things for herself. When I was a single mother, I learned to do everything — change tyres, fix the oven, read the meters, get the heating system to start up, as well as look after my children.

one time, a man came round to read the electricity. ‘Where’s the man of the house?’ he asked me. ‘Man of the house?’ I said. ‘Why? That’s me!’

But now I have a husband who helps me. Sometimes, I let him do it all himself. We bought a narrowboat and he did it up, proudly laying floors, carving sills, making tables that turn into beds and all sorts of impressive, tricky things.

He now loves standing at the tiller driving the boat. When I panic coming in to a narrow deep lock, my husband just says: ‘It’s all under control.’

That’s the beauty of the builder. It is all under control. I can calm down. I don’t have to yelp as the curtain rail falls down or the front step collapses or the house develops damp spots. I have my builder husband to calmly fix it all.