Real stories · The jumper that spares his glasses

Malcolm's glasses came off for every jumper — this one goes on past them

A warm jumper Malcolm can put on without taking his glasses off — that's what this is. I'm 67, my husband Malcolm is 68, and he wears his glasses from breakfast to bedtime. Which, in jumper season, has always meant the same small ceremony several times a day: glasses off, held in the teeth or balanced on the radiator, jumper wrestled over the head, hair left standing like a cockatoo, glasses hunted for. Multiply by October-to-March.

What I wanted was a jumper that worked around the glasses instead of against them.

Then I found the Marvionel from a British label called York Boutique — a men's half-zip fleece pullover in soft cream with a smart stand collar and a neat chest detail. There's brown, grey, burgundy, black and more besides.

The half-zip is the genius of it. Unzipped, the neck opens wide enough that the whole thing slides on past spectacles without so much as a nudge — which is why the ceremony has simply stopped: zip down, on, zip up, done, glasses undisturbed. And the fleece itself is the soft, warm sort he then refuses to take off, with the collar zipped to the chin on cold mornings in the shed and half-open by the fire.

Zip down, on, zip up — glasses never leave his nose, and the cockatoo hair is history.

It was £44.95 — half the usual £90 — which for the jumper he now wears most days of the week works out at pennies a wearing. I did check before ordering that I could send it back if he objected — you can, within a fortnight, and the delivery's free. He did not object.

It has since done the shed, the crossword chair and two pub lunches, and his verdict — delivered while patting the zip like a man demonstrating an invention — was 'why aren't they all like this?' From Malcolm, that is a standing ovation.

If the man in your house also performs the glasses ceremony all winter, do have a look. The Marvionel is rated 4.6 out of 5 by more than 280 customers, it comes in eight colours, in sizes S to 3XL — and with Christmas creeping closer, practical jumpers like this are exactly what gets bought early.