If you were around in the early 80s you will probably remember the birth of New Man.

Something of a phenomenon at the time, this was the term used to describe a male prepared to do more around the home than just put the rubbish out on dustbin day and occasionally clean the windows.

For some of us, it felt like the dawn of a new beginning and everything we had always been waiting for. However as the years have passed it appears that many of us may have had second thoughts.

After all, what on earth is womankind supposed to do with a nation of men that want to sew their own buttons on? Where does that leave us?

Personally my blood runs cold and I have a mild panic attack if I so much as spot a man with a bundle of washing heading towards a kitchen.

I may just be unlucky but I have lost count of how many items of clothing have been ruined by helpful men putting on a wash. Expensive pure wool sweaters have been reduced to the size of dolls’ clothes and the concept of an ‘all white’ wash seems alien to them.

And it appears there are other unexpected ways it can all go so horribly wrong.

In my late teens, a work colleague (let’s call her Emma) turned up for work somewhat shaken. She was off her food, she’d forgotten to wear shoulder pads and had apparently lost the ability to complete the entire Jane Fonda workout video.

She was obviously in a bad way and it took a couple of days for the whole story to unfold.

You see, for a while her dad had started to do more around the house. Not content with merely mowing the lawn, now he was often to be found drying up (today’s equivalent of unloading the dishwasher if you happen to be under the age of 30) and doing a spot of dusting.

And it didn’t stop there. Being an early riser, he had taken to treating Emma and her mum to an early morning cup of tea in bed with a biscuit every day, mothering them you might say.

What had shaken Emma, that fateful morning, was that for the first time she had been fully awake when her dad had brought the tea in. A vision best missed, dressed only in underpants and armed with two mugs of tea.

But it didn’t end there. With horror, she watched as he put both mugs down and then calmly fished around in his Y-fronts to locate and retrieve her morning biscuit, which he then calmly placed by her tea.

She bought him a tray for Christmas and hasn’t eaten a biscuit since.

I haven’t heard the term New Man for years so I tried Googling it. Interestingly the search engine doesn’t appear to recognise this reference at all, so it may as well never have existed.

Obviously I’m generalising but, truth be told, maybe it didn’t really work out.

For me, men are at their best when approaching most white goods to fix them, not use them...