A study by Divorce Aid has shown that couples are most likely to argue and split up during the first week of September or just after Christmas.

Once the summer holidays are over and rapidly becoming a memory, love and lust may fade as fast as a Mediterranean tan. It is back to work for unhappy couples and back to the routine of washing up the breakfast plates in the evening.

For those who are unpartnered and holiday alone, the only souvenir of their fortnight in the sun may, they now think, be no more than tiresome grains of sand in the bottom of their suitcase. Time may show, however, that they have acquired more than sand from their holiday with its sun, sea and sex.

Another recent survey, which seems to have aroused little notice, recorded a great increase in the amount of sexually transmitted diseases among the retired, especially early retired, people who move to the South Coast. The excitements of life in Brighton, Bognor Regis or other retirement spots are no longer apparently confined to chatting over scones and tea. Older people are catching chlamydia and HPV, the human wart virus that causes not only cervical cancer but many other cancers as well.

The problem is not only the result of Uncle Fred’s, Aunt Matilda’s or even grandparents’ louche behaviour once freed from the relentless routine of being a wage-slave, but their age. The immune response begins to falter after the age of 55 to 60, just when people are beginning to retire and move. There are few cancers in which the ability of the body’s immune system is so important, so these ageing but still active middle-aged and older retirees are paying the price.

The association between HPV and cervical cancer is now well established. It is a precursor in 99 per cent of women who suffer from this tumour. HPV 16 and 18, two of the 80 or so types of HPV, are responsible for 75 per cent of cases of cervical cancer and two other types, 6 and 11, are related to 90 per cent of the unsightly, even repulsive, genital warts that are becoming increasingly common even if they are not potentially malignant.

The common mistake is to believe that cervical cancer is the only cancer associated with a few of the many types of HPV. There is also a proven association between pre-malignant warts, HPV warts and vulval and penile cancers. In 80 per cent of anal cancer in men and women, HPV can be shown to be involved, and this association is higher in younger people and in homosexual men.

Not all the potentially malignant effects of HPV are confined to areas below the belt.

It is known that the premalignant forms of wart virus, especially HPV 16, are associated with an appreciable number of cases of cancer of the tonsils and larynx and a significant number of other head and neck cancers — tumours that are increasing in number alarmingly. Oral sex is probably only one of the factors; other known risk factors include alcohol, smoking and, many authorities suggest, cannabis.

Another wart viral infection that causes trouble is papillomatosis of the larynx. This is seen in two groups of people — in young babies who picked up the virus during their passage into this world, and in adults who probably caught it through sex. Multiple papillomas, even if benign, present considerable difficulties with treatment.

Fortunately there is an answer to the increasingly common problems caused by HPV. Two vaccines, Gardasil and Cervarix, will soon become available in this country. Both are produced by reputable firms and have been licensed by authorities in Canada, the US, Brazil, Australia and Europe, though they are not yet available here.

When they are, it is essential that all children, boys and girls, should be vaccinated before puberty and sexual activity. Only if men as well as women realise that they are responsible for carrying the HPV virus will the extent of these problems begin to diminish.