I had a maiden aunt who died when aged 104. She was very attractive in her youth and in more mature years but she rejected all suitors and spent her years looking after others who were frailer and less robust than herself. She once said to me, “Henry, all men are beasts; their thoughts never rise higher than the bed.”

Over time and in this sad age of rising domestic violence, I sometimes ponder on what she said those sixty or seventy years ago.