Hen parties have become a national embarrassment

Emma Green was just like any other young bridezilla — hellbent on a hen night never to forget, woo hoo. all the 35-yearold social worker wanted was a four-night mega-bender in magaluf for herself and 17 pals. Is that too much to ask? In this case, yes. emma’s hen-do went wrong from the start, when the party were removed from their Jet2 flight from east midlands airport to majorca for refusing to remove their team T-shirts.

Staff objected to the message in bright pink letters on the back: BITCHeS On TOUr.

Well, it might have been rude, but at least the gals wasted no time in living up to their name.

emma couldn’t see what the problem was, which is why she and her friends refused to remove the T-shirts.

Kicked off the plane, they had to rebook themselves onto other flights, at an extra cost of £2,500. Clearly social workers in Leicestershire are paid enough for this excess charge not to be a problem, although emma is seeking an apology and compensation from Jet2. Good luck with that.

‘We’re not a group of lager louts, we are respectable working mums,’ said one of the hens.

If they were professional women and mothers, would they really be boarding an international flight in borderline- obscene T- shirts and — even worse! — matching pairs of fluffy slippers? Or arguing with airline staff, who were only making a polite and reasonable request?

What has happened to hen parties? They’re now out of control — too large, too overwhelming, too determined to debauch.

In my day, a hen night was a far more modest affair. It really was just a night out (singular), usually spent locally, quite often in someone’s home.

We’d do the catering ourselves, toast the end of our friend’s glorious singleton-dom and go home — without getting ourselves arrested for lewd and drunken behaviour, or worse.

I recall once playing a slightly risqué version of Pin The Tail On The Donkey, but that was about as wild as it ever got in Glen Jan.

Party celebrations did not, repeat not, end five days later with half of the bridesmaids in jail, the bride wondering how she got that Insert Coin In Slot buttock tattoo and a £2,000 bill for Sex On The Beach cocktails.

I suspect that everyone is heartily sick of hen parties, including the hens themselves. not least because the whole concept has ballooned into an expensive waste of time for all concerned.

no longer can a hen party be just a few drinks and a Delia Smith sausage roll. now, it has to be a jeep safari in morocco, a pamper paradise in Dubai or a week in Las Vegas, complete with a male stripper boasting a swansdown codpiece and a better leg wax than anyone in your party.

meanwhile, there’s fancy dress! activities! It’s all so exhausting.

Poor old europe remains the destination of choice for most British hen and (shudder) stagdos, because nothing says ‘I’m getting married’ more than a Hogarthian week-long bender in marbella or Bratislava, complete with a nightly vomiting and longterm kidney damage.

Such collective bad behaviour is becoming a national embarrassment. Ten men were arrested in malta after causing a disturbance on their flight from edinburgh in april. Two stags fought on a flight to Bratislava last year.

and earlier this year, Jet2 came to the rescue again, removing two stag parties from a flight from manchester airport to Prague.

This is part of airlines’ new zero tolerance approach to the bad behaviour of hens and stags. Other passengers shouldn’t have to put up with such nonsense, they say.

Quite right, too. Yes, airlines do sometimes treat passengers like cattle or pests, but in this instance, I think they did the right thing.

One can see why some passengers, especially those with children, might object to the Bitches On Tour — who failed to realise that just because you have paid for a ticket, doesn’t mean you can do as you please.

The thing about weddings is that they bring out the best and the worst in people.

after being thrown off the flight, the Bitches On Tour bride-to-be said: ‘a part of me doesn’t want to get married now.’

Well, doesn’t that just say it all? Where is her love-is- eternal face now?

Getting married should be about making a serious commitment to another human being to share your life with him or her. It is not about overblown parties or crazy, look-at-me celebrations.

Is it too optimistic to hope that mega hen and stag parties will soon go out of fashion, along with a self-absorbed culture where everything has to be loud and brash and exhibitionist?

I’ll answer that question myself. Sadly, yes it is.