House wives: the interesting life of an MP's spouse

ENVY not the politician's wife. She must be a stalwart, at her husband's side come rain or shine. She must be a domestic goddess, raising impeccably turned-out children almost single-handed. She must host party fundraisers, deliver election pamphlets and still manage to look gorgeous on polling night.

• Judy Steele, left, and Rosie Wallace

Of course, the reality is rather different, as I discover when two of Scotland's leading political spouses spill the beans over wine. With both their husbands happily ensconced in the Lords – "We're Ladies, you know!" – Mrs David Steel and Mrs Jim Wallace have decided to speak for themselves by becoming writers.

In October, Judy Steel will publish her memoir, Tales from the Tap End, reflections on life as the consort of one of Scotland's best-loved politicians. If you felt that Tony Blair's memoir offered more information than you wanted about the Blairs' marriage, be warned that Judy's title refers to the fact that she and the former Liberal leader "have always found that the bath is an excellent place for conversation." Judy was told early on that the woman's place was "at the tap end".

Meanwhile, Rosie Wallace is making a career for herself as a novelist with her first book, A Small Town Affair, published earlier this year, and a second is in the making. "My tongue has been quite well chewed over the years," she says with a wry smile. "I thought I could allow it to wag a bit." While she is careful to insist that her book – about the wife of a politician who is caught having an affair – is entirely fictional, she admits it deals with familiar subjects: "Gossip, double standards, and women who have things expected of them because of their husband's jobs – I got quite a lot off my chest."

Some women, both ladies are keen to point out, choose life as a political spouse, others have it thrust upon them. Judy met David when both were involved in student politics at Edinburgh University. By the time they were engaged, he was a candidate. They took a shorter-than-planned honeymoon to accommodate political business.

She gave up her career in law to help him fight the by-election in Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles in 1965. "We were always a team, right from the time we started going out together, we just did it all together. There were about six Liberal MPs at that time, but I suppose I just always had faith that he was going to do it. We had amazing strokes of luck – and a lot of hard work too.

"Back in the 1960s and 1970s, politics was such a lot of fun. Elections were such good fun, you had meetings – David would do three a night in the constituency. One of the things I regret most is that there is not the same interface between the public and the candidates. It's all filtered through the media now."

Rosie, on the other hand, "got engaged to an advocate whose hobby was politics" only to find that she was marrying the newly elected MP for Orkney and Shetland. Leaving her job as a speech and language therapist, she found herself organising jumble sales in the Northern Isles with her new husband frequently absent in Westminster. "The man was a Liberal," she says, with mock incredulity. "Liberals hardly ever get elected!"

Judy says she was surprised to see today's party leaders take their wives on the campaign trail. "Both Sarah Brown and Samantha Cameron went on the national trail with their husbands. I stayed at home and fought the constituency for him. I did the public meetings and the work visits, the old folks' homes visits and the rural canvassing."

She says she has never minded knocking on doors. "I love it. You really are engaging with people all the time. The last election was great because it was lovely weather, and you're spoiled if you live somewhere like the Borders. People are usually pretty forthright. I've had a lot of fun over the years."

Rosie is less of a natural canvasser. "I'm very good at delivering leaflets and my children are, and you walk miles and miles, but I don't like asking people how they're going to vote. I almost felt it was like begging for your husband's job, it made me uncomfortable." Both know the loneliness of raising children with their husband away in Westminster from Monday to Friday. For their first ten years in Orkney, the Wallaces' home doubled as Jim's constituency office. "I was the staff," says Rosie. "So I answered the telephone, with children falling down toilets and writing on the wall with a red pen while somebody was trying to tell me some ghastly thing that was happening to them."

Judy says: "I always took the view that politics was a family venture, like a farm would be. We never really hid the children from the Press, even when David became party leader." She is "terribly proud" that her daughter, Catriona, has taken the baton and is pursuing her own political career (she is a councillor and parliamentary candidate).

But it was also trying at times. "When David was party leader, that was a very hard time. I had teenage children, and his mind was so focused on what was happening nationally. I found the years of his leadership much the hardest."

Rosie nods, knowingly: "Because the world owns them – or at least the party does."

There were also dark days politically when their support as wives was crucial. Judy flew to London to be close to David during the difficult period of negotiation preceding the merger of the Liberal Party with the SDP, and Rosie travelled to Edinburgh to be beside Jim in his two Scottish Parliament elections. The early years of the Scottish Parliament were the best and worst of times, the euphoria of the launch almost immediately subsumed in controversy and criticism. "I stopped buying a daily paper, stopped listening to Good Morning Scotland," says Rosie. "Jim was deputy first minister and I'd two teenage children. I didn't want them to hear that when they were having their breakfast."

"It was constant," says Judy, shaking her head. David, as the Parliament's first presiding officer, was heavily involved in the negotiations about the controversial building. "It was a hard time. The building problems really bedevilled and haunted those four years. Otherwise it would have been a wonderful four years, creating a new institution."

But when the going gets tough, politicians' wives support one another. "It doesn't need to be necessarily people in the same party," says Judy. "When things are really unpleasant, somebody from another party can be very supportive indeed."

Rosie joined a group of other LibDem spouses to become known as the POWs (Pissed-Off Wives). "Originally, we were the Tenerife Club – come the next election we weren't going to deliver leaflets, we were going to go to Tenerife. But that never happened. Occasionally, we sit at conferences with a glass of wine and moan – that's quite therapeutic." Judy smiles: "I had to tell Rosie I'm not a pissed-off wife!"

While neither has had to face a scandal in her husband's private life, they have seen it happen to other wives. Rosie imagines such a situation in her novel. "The fact that people aren't allowed the privacy to sort out what is a personal matter between them – the world is looking at what's going to happen – is terrible. I always said to Jim I would never hang over a five-bar gate with the family and smile, if he transgressed. We would discuss it behind closed doors. I'm definitely getting feistier as I get older, I think I would be monumentally rude."

Both have seen politics become a "celebrity culture": Menzies Campbell standing down as LibDem leader "because he wasn't young and vibrant"; politicians' wives having their wardrobes dissected in magazines. "Cherie Blair had a terrible time," says Judy. "I'm not saying that she hasn't made a lot of mistakes, but she is a nice-looking woman, she just doesn't photograph well."

"Would I have gone to a health farm, become a size 12 and worn stilettos," muses Rosie. "Or would I have had enough self-esteem to be as I am? It's quite a difficult one, that. Would you want the only report of your husband's speech at the Mansion House to be about the fact that your dress looked ghastly?"

Judy had what she describes as a "funny episode" in the late 1990s when she dieted and lost a lot of weight, and found herself – after 30 years of hard work – suddenly being photographed and interviewed. She's philosophical. "Suddenly I got discovered. I thought it was a bit of a joke in a way. It summed up quite a lot about values. All the weight went back on anyway."

There was also pain of seeing their husbands become the butt of a joke by satirists, as David was on Spitting Image. "Jim was always passed off as being steady to the extent of being comatose," says Rosie. "Ross Finnie got called Captain Mainwaring all the time. OK, it's quite funny once, but it's not how you are and it gets embedded in people's minds."

They are angered by the perception, after the expenses scandal, that all MPs are freeloaders. Judy remembers when the "living in London allowance" was introduced, and how much difference it made to their family's life. The system intended to create parity ended up provoking a witch-hunt. "I don't know anybody who went into politics to make money," she says. Rosie adds: "The vast majority of people (in political life] work extremely hard to the detriment of their personal lives."