“I can see he needs larger sizes,” said Fenella. “We have a wide range. Would you like him in very babyish styles with pretty pictures all over? We have them in very strong plastic. The trouble is they crackle rather loudly, which can be embarrassing.”

“Oh we love enmbarrassing,” declared Natalia, Gordon’s wife. “Something very girly if you have them.”

“Girly plastic pants,” added her mother, “and effeminate frilly diaper covers to go over them.”

Fenella opened three or four drawers and soon had a range of plastic pants rustling and crackling across the counter. “I’d be pleased to try them on him,” she said, leering at the disconsolate husband in the ridiculous bonnet. “This counter doubles as a changing table; we can put him on here.”

Seconds later he was surrounded by the three women for them to pull one pair of plastic panties after another up his legs and snap them into place at his waist. His pacifier bobbed in his mouth with redoubled anguish as Genevieve and Natalia “Oohed!” and “Aahed!” with delight. But their greatest cries of glee greeted Fenella’s collection of little girl panties in double-thickness wee-proof plastic covered all over with pictures of dolls faces and little pairs of girls’ panties. There were pull-up versions and snap-shut pairs too.

“I’m going to love changing him into these at my coffee morning tomorrow,” trilled his mother-in-law.