I’m married to a ‘child’ like Joe Swash, I get why he makes Stacey Solomon mad, I’ve even have to give HIM an allowance
WALKING into her craft room Alysha Fletcher can’t wait to admire husband Garry’s handiwork – he’s promised to build her bookshelves.
What greets her is “DIY roadkill.” “The floor is covered with five opened toolboxes and there’s saws, hammers, electric drills, and screws scattered everywhere,” says Alysha, 39, from Blackpool, Lancs. Sitting in the middle of the chaos is Garry, also 39, proudly showing off his creation. But it’s not shelves – instead it’s a kids’ toy box.
Alysha, who runs a craft business, is married to a real life Joe Swash who critics branded “useless” and “another child for Stacey” after the first episode of their show Joe and Stacey aired on the BBC last week and is also on TV tonight.
“Critics called him ‘likeable but useless’ and I’m married to a man just like him,” says Alysha, who wed Garry 18 years ago. “I know every single reason he makes mum-of-five Stacey Solomon snap.
“When I watched their new reality show with Stacey’s super organised ‘get it done’ approach and Joe’s special brand of chaos, I felt relieved.
“Like Joe, Garry performs bonkers DIY tasks and promises to be home in an hour and ends up spending half the day out.
“Garry goes out to the shops for eggs and comes home with something completely different.
“Joe goes out for nappies – just when they need to get a flight – and forgets them.
“Everyone loves Joe Swash and everyone loves my Garry. But he is my fourth child.”
Viewers were stunned when one scene showed Stacey, 35, left fuming after Joe was five hours late picking up their kids.
She had been looking forward to her first meeting to discuss the creation of her debut fragrance, but it was disrupted by her crying children.
She told the camera: “Joe was supposed to come to this meeting but he’s been delayed indefinitely, it seems.”
He finally turned up and apologised for being “20 minutes late” – he was five hours.
Alysha has even put maintenance worker Garry on a monthly allowance. “He gets £300 or otherwise he would spend it all on tools,” she says. “He doesn’t find it humiliating. He prefers I handle the cash.”
But she says their yin and yang approach to life is actually the secret of their marriage being so successful.
“He drives me crazy with his special brand of forgetfulness and failure to take direction,” she says. “But it is also why we’re celebrating 21 years of being a couple.”
According to Alysha it takes a special kind of woman not to lose it completely with a man like Garry.
The fourth child
“I am super organised from batch cooking to money saving,” she says. “I know where everything is in the house and ensure it runs smoothly.
“Garry is organised at work but on the home front it’s a different matter – he’s my fourth child.”
The couple met in February 2003, just before Alysha’s 18th birthday. “In June 2005 we welcomed our first daughter, now 19,” says Alysha.
“Garry and I were over-the-moon and in December 2005 moved into a two bedroom council house. Then in 2012 we moved into our three bedroom council house we now live in.”
What Garry says:
“Alysha loves to moan but she does not understand us men have our own special ways of doing things. Going to the hardware store is a pilgrimage.
“My way of choosing a paint colour works. She does not appreciate my sense of proportion and artistic flair.
“Yes, I get distracted, but I have different skills.
“She and our girls love taking part in pageants. The house looks like a glitter bomb exploded when they’re getting ready.
“Joe and I should go for a beer – our ladies would have to send out search parties.”
It was then Alysha says Garry’s inner ‘manchild’ revealed itself.
“We started decorating our new home on a budget and money was tight,” she says. “We’d just had new carpeting installed in the hallway and I was proud.
“Garry said he’d hang the wallpaper, something he promised me he’d done before.”
But when Alysha arrived home from the shops, she discovered wallpaper and glue splattered all over her new flooring and little on the walls.
“It was a disaster zone,” she recalls. “I lost the plot. Garry offered to ‘fix it’ I refused. We needed new carpet, and I supervised the wallpaper hanging.”
Painting the house turned into an exercise in patience for new mum Alysha who was juggling a newborn and a “loveable but childlike” 20-something.
“One time I asked Garry to test the paint samples on the wall to choose the colour,” she says.
“But when I got home he’d painted separate walls each colour to see what worked. He was so proud. He hadn’t covered the floor or used masking tape either.
“When I cracked and told him he was being a manchild he stomped out. Garry was sulking, but it only lasted until I told him dinner was on the table. I laugh about it now – that’s just Garry.”
Alysha says Garry is an amazing hands-on dad but caused chaos when it came to keeping the babies and toddlers on their schedule. “I’d say keep the kids on their nap schedule,” she says. “He constantly forgot to check the time. It left me with grumpy kids who wanted to play all night.”
In 2019 Alysha was diagnosed with two stomach ulcers and a stomach hernia and needed surgery and two weeks hospitalisation.
“I was bedbound for nearly a year, and Garry really stepped up,” she says. “I couldn’t have gone through it without him. Garry was great with the kids, but handling finances wasn’t his thing. We ended up £7,000 in debt, I wasn’t working, Garry’s work was limited and he wasn’t the expert I was in shopping around.”
What viewers say:
Viewers sympthised with Stacey, and one said: “Watching #staceyandjoe is enough to ensure I never have 5 kids because what is this chaos along with a useless husband.”
Another said: “How hard was it for Joe to be on time!! Gosh, he’s like another child for Stacey!”
One wrote: “Joe Swash has got it sweet. Stacey is the bread winner”
But others weren’t so mean, writing: “
I already love them & after this I love them even more. Cameras following for 6 months as they celebrate a 2nd anniversary & Turkey holiday. Does Joe spread butter with a spoon? 7/10.”
One person said: “Absolutely LOVING this chat. They are so honest and real. Hearing Stacey and Sophie talk about how they are in relationships really makes me feel seen, lol. Brilliant, brilliant episode.”
By 2020 Alysha realised to avoid further debt she’d need to take back the purse strings and free up Garry’s time to focus on the kids while she recovered.
“Garry’s got a lot of talents,” she says.”Dealing with household finances is not one of them.
“I had to choose between bankruptcy and using extreme budgeting and money-saving hacks to keep us warm and pay off the debt. It also meant putting Garry on an allowance of £300 each month . We use his wages to pay certain bills and then he gets an allowance for his tools and boy things.”
Alysha is so organised she batchcooks once a month to save money, researches the cheapest supermarkets to shop at and uses money-saving hacks.
“I paid off the debt within two years and now we are saving to buy our council house,” she says. “If I had left Garry with all the responsibilities we would be in a completely different financial situation. We both admit that.”
Like Stacey, Alysha is a super crafter and repurposing expert and used her skills to launch her own crafting and labelling business.
“My workspace has everything in its place,” she says. “It is an organisation at its finest.
“I asked Garry to help me one day and my work area looked like a battle ground.”
Garry’s time-keeping could be worked on
She says, like Joe, Garry is bad at time-keeping. “Garry promises to be ‘just an hour’ in B&Q to get the glue I need,” she says.
“Four hours later he arrives home with new tools for him and no glue.”
As for gardening Alysha admits her very own Joe needs constant supervision.
“He has to get all his five tool boxes out and every gardening device we have,” she says. “If I ask for hedges to be trimmed, I come out to discover he’s built a bird box or painted the fence instead.
“It drives me bonkers.”