Worst wives' club

Four of the UK's "worst" wives are to be the subject of a new TV show.

11:05 02 November 2004

For any men out there who think that they have got it bad, Channel Five has released a new series following the lives of four of the "worst" wives in the UK.

They include shopaholics who only return home for money, hygiene obsessives who will not let their husbands move about in a chair for fear of raising dust and one woman who sends her children to bed in their school uniforms to avoid creating extra washing.

The first worst wife examined is Kelly Rix from Essex. Kelly not only disappears for 11-hour shopping sprees, but also takes as long as seven hours to get ready for a night out. Not that husband Paul sees the benefits, as Kelly, 35, prefers going out with her girlfriends.

"She can be home by 1am, but there are other times when she finally falls through the door at 4am," Paul explains.

The second contender, also from Essex and called Kerry (King this time), is obsessed with cleanliness.

This mother of one has worn out three vacuum cleaner motors this year alone with her incessant hoovering.

"I'll vacuum at two in the morning. I don't care if I wake the neighbours," she explained.

Her dust obsession means that husband Paul has to live a very quiet life.

"He can sit still in the chair but there's no need to jump around and move in it," Kerry, 30, explains.

The next wife on the list is Laura Freeman, from High Wycombe, who freely admits that her home is a "pigsty" and that she is so workshy that she sends her children to bed in their school uniforms.

Jennifer Webb from Liverpool is the final woman on the list.

Jennifer sends husband John, 36, to work six days a week and then makes him do all the housework on his one day off.

"I do think I'm lazy, but who wouldn't be with someone like John around," she explained.

Viewers will be able to decide for themselves who is Britain's worst wife when the series begins on Five this Sunday.