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‘D
ebbie?’ Craig,
my husband,
called. ‘Can
you pop upstairs?’
The tone of his voice made
my heart sink and I was filled
with a familiar sense of dread.
What had he done now?
Nothing could have
prepared me for the bomb
site that awaited me in our
bedroom. ‘What have you
done?’ I shrieked as I took
in the bright, shocking pink
wall and stained bedspread
with holes in it.
‘It was meant to be pastel
pink, and the duvet...’ Craig
grimaced nervously. ‘It’s
not quite the right colour,’
he admitted. ‘And the paint
dripped on to the bed, so
I tried to get it off with
a metal scourer, and the
bedspread ripped.’
Although I was shocked
at the scale of Craig ’s DIY
disaster, I’m not sure why
I was surprised. After all, it
wasn’t the first time – and it
probably wouldn’t be the last.
If there were such a thing,
I’d enter him into the Britain’s
Clumsiest Man competition.
And he’d win.
When I first met Craig, now
50, at the end of 1994, I had
no idea about his blundering,
accident-prone behaviour.
Both avid singers, we gotI’m married to Britai
From setting the
fridge on fire to
blowing up an oven,
Debbie Stephens’
husband, Craig, is
a real DIY disaster...
Craig used a
scourer to get
paint off their
bedding –
tearing it
to shredstalking at a karaoke night
and instantly sparked. He
was funny, kind and had a
great voice. We were married
within six months. It was only
then that I got a glimpse of the
chaos that follows Craig.
‘What’s that on the carpet?’
I asked one night at our
Edinburgh home.
‘Oh, I couldn’t be bothered
to get the ironing board out.
I burnt the carpet ironing my
shirt on it,’ he explained.
And that was only the start.
When we had our two sons,Craig, now 23, and Kurt, 22,
it often felt like I had three
children to look after.
Don’t get me wrong, it
wasn’t that Craig didn’t want
to help. He did, all the time.
Like when the boys were
toddlers and we’d ordered
a new sofa. After waiting
for weeks, we were excited
for our new piece of furniture.
The delivery men were still
in the room when Craig cut
into the plastic wrapping and
sliced straight through the
new sofa, causing the foamto spill everywhere...
Or, that same year, when
I was bathing the boys and
Craig came in and propped
himself against the sink –
then CRASH! The basin
broke under his weight and
water spewed out everywhere.
I didn’t always find it funny.
When our oven stopped
working, Craig refused to call
an electrician, insisting he
could fix it himself. In true
Craig style, the oven blew
up – leaving the smoke alarm
screaming and both him and