Ask Virginia Ironside

I don’t do God

QI am getting married again at the great age of 65. My husband is 68 – so we are mere spring chickens. My only problem is that, although I love my husband-to-be in every way, he is an ardent churchgoer and I’ve never been religious.

I won’t say the Lord’s Prayer because I just don’t believe in it. I find all the rigmarole of the Creed, and the psalms and so on, so much gibberish; and the idea of Christ being risen is totally ridiculous.

But it means a lot to my husband to have a church blessing and, ideally, he’d like me to go to church with him every Sunday. I have gone to a couple of services, gritting my teeth, but I can’t keep my fingers crossed behind my back for ever, can I? Maureen by email

AI’ve been through lots of incarnations when it comes to church-going. After a very religious spell, I turned against it and, for a long time, felt exactly like you. But, as I got older, I relented. I found I could say the Lord’s Prayer by viewing it more like a song than a string of words. I could say, ‘I believe,’ in the same way as I could say, ‘I’m fine,’ if someone asked me how I was.

To go along with the whole thing in practice, if not in spirit, seemed to me to be nothing but good manners to my fellow man. And, eventually, isn’t it something to acknowledge that our whole Western society is pretty much based on a Christian ethos – be kind to each other, love your neighbour, don’t kill people or be beastly?

So perhaps you could see going to church as just a tipping of your cap, as it were, to a fantastic tradition. There is no point to putting on black at a funeral, after all, but we do it. Or wearing clothes on a hot day. Or allowing older people to go first. But we do all this because society – which is based on Christianity, like it or not – asks it of us.

In other words, and to use a vile expression, chill out. It’s not a court of law. Many people who go to church don’t believe every single scrap of the Bible (many do, of course). But, on the whole, they go out of a sense of being part of a group that generally believes in a set of values that benefits us all. Here endeth the first lesson.

PS And have a lovely married life!

I simply cannot sleep

QI find it really hard to sleep at night. I’ve tried everything – windows open, no screens before bedtime, not sleeping in the day, hot drinks, meditation, early dinner, special pillows and mattresses, much more exercise – but still I’m tossing and turning until the small hours. Occasionally, I just have to resort to a pill, though I try not to. Any ideas? John, Wolverhampton

AYou could try just staying up instead of going to bed. You could try getting up much earlier; so you’re more tired in the evening. You could trying taking sleeping pills regularly for ten days or so, and then gradually cutting them down – trying to get your body into the habit of falling asleep at a certain time. Or you could try a gadget that apparently works a dream for babies – a white noise machine. There are several available on Amazon.

You switch it on and it will give you birdsong, lapping of water on the shore, wind, fan noise, low music… just a quiet drone that helps get you off. Any other readers’ tips very welcome!

Mature table manners

QMy aunt, who is rather shortsighted, gets food around her mouth or down her front when she eats. I wonder if I should keep pointing this out to her. I feel I could do it to a child, but is there an age where you should just let people get on with things without picking at them? Fiona by email

AHeavens, I hope against hope that people will keep pointing things like this out to me until I drop off my perch! No one wants to have bits of lettuce tucked into their shirt instead of a cravat, nor do they want cream smeared onto their upper lip like a greasy moustache. Pick away, say I.

It’s a kindness you’re doing your aunt. Let’s hope that, short-sighted as she may be, she won’t refrain, if she ever catches you with spinach in your teeth or oatmeal in your nostrils, from pointing it out at once. It’s a sign of love, not rudeness.

READERS RESPOND

I was so sad to read of the grandparents unable to be in touch with their children abroad (‘We’ve lost our grandchildren’, Ask Virginia, October Oldie). Perhaps the grandfather could elicit the help of the Consular Department of the FCO, via his MP. The children are UK citizens, and consular officials would be entitled to inquire about their whereabouts and welfare. As a former consular officer at various of our posts overseas, I know how painful these types of cases can be.

Roger Davies by email