WHAT I KNOW ABOUT WOMEN

DICK STRAWBRIDGE Mbe is a 60-year-old TV presenter and former lieutenant colonel. He lives in a 45-room, 19th-century chateau in France with his wife, angel, 41, and their two children Dorothy, five, and arthur, seven.

THEY’RE THE ONE ENIGMA I CAN’T SOLVE

IF YOU were to dig up the garden I grew up in in County Antrim, northern Ireland, you would find it studded with buried wooden spoons. My mother, Jenny, raised seven children — I have four sisters and two brothers — single-handedly while our father was away working in the oil industry for months at a time.

She cooked, cleaned and disciplined us, threatening a smack to our bottoms with a wooden spoon if we misbehaved . . . so, we would steal and bury the spoons when she wasn’t looking, in peals of laughter. She’s now 86 with the spirit of someone a third of her age, and gives me a stern telling off if I look tired.

We were brought up to stand when a woman entered a room and to open doors for them. I don’t think women are the weaker sex, but they are the fairer sex. Physically, of course, men and women are not equals, but strength is just as much about character.

Angela, or Angel, my wife, is an alpha lady. We were introduced in 2010 by our shared agent — she is an entrepreneur and designer — who saw we were both efficient and organised, so well suited.

now we work and live together in france at Chateau de la Motte Husson, which we bought five years ago for £280,000. It had no electricity, heating or water and a sanitation system that emptied into the moat.

Renovation was hard work, but Angela learned fast and always looks gorgeous. One of her first jobs was knocking down a 2ft-thick solid stone wall to make two rooms into one. She was straight up the scaffolding, using a jackhammer to create exactly what she wanted.

When the children have gone to bed, Angela and I get into our ‘horizontal office’ — our bed — with our laptops, a glass of wine and chat about the day.

I don’t always get everything right. As an engineer, I’ve learned the solution to everything except women.