Scots need to return to their offices and start making babies – Susan Morrison

Correction. Last week I said that my dear husband and I had been together these past 37 years.

Terry-Thomas flirts with French actress Line Renaud while filming for TV Around Town in 1955. Is the age of the office romance now over? (Picture: Edward Miller/Keystone/Getty Images)

I have been informed, rather testily and in true Yorkshire fashion, that we have in fact only been married for 34 years.

In true Scottish fashion, I pedantically pointed out that we have been together for 37 years.

You can see why the long winter nights just fly by in our house.

We met at work. You could say it was an office romance. To be exact, the ABC Cinema on Lothian Road. I was taking over from him as assistant manager. He was headed to Coventry to be manager there.

He was also supposed to be getting married, but that, children, is another story. Obviously, he didn’t. Not then, at any rate.

At the same time, in a council office far, far away (Dundee) my best pal was falling for the guy in repairs and maintenance. They’re still together as well.

Offices were excellent hunting grounds for romance back then. And, oh, the fun of watching it unfold. Who can forget the suddenly caught glances between co-workers, watching the shy offers to lunch or discovering the phone extensions were simultaneously engaged?

You needed sharp timing on that last one. It depended on having both you and the girl next to you being ready to dial both numbers at the same time.

Alas no more. A very high up bloke in CNN resigned recently because he’s having a romance with a woman in his office. Strikes me as a bit odd. She’s not the office intern or anything. She’s a grown-up gal.

They seem like two nice adults who love each other. Well done, I say, but clearly that office doesn’t do romance, so I guess the sly glances and the giggling in the photocopy room are out.

Who meets in an office now, anyway? With everyone working from home and only Zoom calls at appointed times, how are the younger generation meant to woo each other? No wonder the population is falling.

Get back into offices, young folk, and get romancing. Scotland needs babies.

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