Wives who wouldn't trade places - and some who would

All the nice girls love a trader!

All the nice girls love a star!

Oh they love the lovely money

'Cos they think the money's

yummy

Yes, that's the way girls are!

So - to the tune of "All the Nice Girls Love a Sailor" - goes the City drinking song; but what happens to the ones, like Lisa Leeson, who get to marry one? A few, a very few, find they've struck gold. Take one young couple, already retired for life to the West Country. Let's call them Robert and Paula, since nowadays they are far too rich to risk giving their real names.

They met when they were both financial whiz-kids - archetypal Eighties yuppies, in fact. He was a trader, she a banker. Two years ago they bought a spacious and beautiful old country house in which - following a year of restoration and refurbishment - they both now live full-time with their three children. After a decade of frenzied money-making, Paula and Robert have achieved every trader's dream: freedom. Still only in their early thirties, they need never work for money again.

But listen, too, to the more sober voice of - let's call her Christine, since she's not anxious to be identified either. For seven years her husband, Fergus, was a "local" on the Liffe exchange, trading on his own account, which means with his own money.

"It's gambling, basically - rolling the dice. I was 19 when I met him, working for a travel agency, and he was 24. At first it was fun and exciting because it's cash and it's fast and one minute it's up and the next down, and when you have no commitments that's OK. It was wacky and different in a dangerous kind of way. One minute we'd be planning a holiday in the Seychelles; the next the bailiffs would be knocking at the door.

``It didn't affect me at that stage because I had my own job, but later, after we were married and had a mortgage and children, then it began to affect me. Life was so unstable it became a nightmare. If you have any gambling instincts it's like a drug. Once you're on a roll, making money, it's very hard to believe you're going to lose it. I've watched people make a million pounds one week and lose it the next. Or they'd buy a huge house in Holland Park and have to sell it four months later. Some women are fine with that. I found it got harder and harder over the years."

How did it affect her husband? Christine is a loyal wife and finds this question tricky. "Erm... " she begins, and tails off with an embarrassed little cough. "I think he, er, drinks too much. He had to unwind somehow because the job's so stressful. A high proportion of them down there have drink problems. They get in at 7am; by 11am it feels like the middle of the day to them and they start drinking. Yes, it definitely did affect Fergus and his moods."

Christine sounds stressed herself, though she is sitting over a mid-morning coffee, all three children safely at school. "It's very hard being married to a `local'." Did they ever put money aside? "Absolutely not. Fergus has a gambler's nature and he just physically couldn't do it. When he had it, he spent it. It was champagne and cocktails or the bailiffs, and it was scary. The money can go so fast - in seconds - and you have to have nerves like steel."

Paula is the one who struck lucky. "We always used to say that when we hit a certain level of savings we'd stop. We got there and he went on working. He set a second level... " - are we talking millions of pounds here? Yes, she confirms, we are - "and by the time the money was approaching that second level Robert was suffering physically from overload. He would lose his balance, bump his head against walls. He was unable to pay attention to anything I said; he just couldn't compute it on top of everything else. All the megabytes had been used up. I found that unbearable. So at the second level he quit and we retired to live down here. If he hadn't agreed to do that I think I would have left him."

Does she feel that he would have preferred to go on longer, make another few million? "My husband was 32 when he left the City and he was completely burnt out. He couldn't sleep, eat, take exercise; he was twitchy and nervous. He slept with an ear for the phone and the Reuters machine on his chest. He was impossible to live with. It wasn't the happiest two or three years of my life. Now, a year later, he's calming down, but it will take time before he gets back to being 100 per cent normal."

Paula was a financial high-flier herself before she married. How does she spend her days now? "I have help around the house and with the children but I spend a lot of time with them. I do get a bit frustrated sometimes but I'm much happier now than when I was in the City."

Looking back, was it worth bringing her husband close to breaking-point, given the possible long-term damage to his health? "Yes," Paula says. "We took the money and ran. There are a few others like us down here, working as cabinet makers, builders: old-fashioned, meaningful, productive jobs. But not everybody is so lucky. By the time I stopped work I couldn't take money seriously any more. Champagne - it meant nothing. I bought whatever I wanted and didn't stop to consider the price. Now I think before buying: do I really want this? Is it really worth it?"

Back in London, however, Christine is still asking herself whether her husband's job on the Liffe exchange was worth the tension. (He stopped being a ``local'' some time ago and is no longer trading with his own money.) "The older he got and the more committed, the more frightening it became. The trading got wilder and the losses got bigger. I thought I was dealing with it well; in fact, I just shut my eyes and drifted and ended up being on first-name terms with the bailiffs in a slightly dotty way.''

Did her husband share his worries with her? "He talked to the bottle instead. So many people drink - I know of two `locals' who tried to commit suicide; others take drugs, get ulcers - but there's always that dream luring them on, of making a fortune and retiring. Bundles of them did it in the Eighties but, on the whole, if you are making money you can't stop.

"You may take two years off, but you'll come back again."

Based on what she knows of money, Christine no longer wants it. "Sure, there were plenty of people who'd made a million by their early twenties and by their late twenties multi-millions, but it's like monopoly money to them: it's not real.

"It's attractive to the kind of people who've literally come from nothing: East End barrow boys. They started as clerks at 18 and if they're lucky and sharp they make a whole heap but then they don't know what to do with it. They get bored and impatient.

"With not much education, they have no interests apart from making money. They have the Ferrari, the Porsche and the token blonde girlfriend - all the trappings - but they never look remotely happy. They have an empty life to live.

"When I go to parties given by these types on the Liffe exchange I know before I walk in what I'm going to find. They've all got mammoth wine cellars and seriously fantastic vintage wine, and they're turning the bottles upside-down and fizzing them before pouring them out. They've got it, but they don't appreciate it. You feel that secretly they'd rather drink beer."

Jacky Ipsen - which is her real name - provides a contrast so complete that it's hard to credit. She and her husband Derek are, she tells me with every sign of truthfulness, utterly happy. They met seven years ago when he was at Phillips & Drew and she a trainee dealer at a building society. "We used to talk on the phone and it all started from that." They have been married six years.

Derek is now a high-earning financial wizard, working for Daiwan bank. Most of the money comes from his bonus - he gets a percentage of anything he makes over and above his annual sales target. She is vague about precisely what sort of sums are involved, but when I guess £180,000 she grins and says: "More than that - in a bad year."

So what are the minuses in their life? "Our families. Mine is from Leeds and Derek's is from Cardiff and I do miss them. It's embarrassing to give money to our families, though Derek bought his mum a car and we took my mum and dad with us on holiday, but my mum says she doesn't like to feel like a sponger. There's a lot of pride involved, but of course if anyone were in need we'd step in."

The Ipsens live with their two young children - a baby is due in September - in a five-bedroomed Edwardian house with a large garden in a prosperous London suburb. The children go to the local primary school and, unusually, the Ipsens plan to educate them through the state system.

Jacky says: "Sometimes you have to check yourself. My older son Gerald's got a friend who lives on a housing estate just down the road and you have to stop and remember that money's tight for them. We do realise we're very fortunate.''

Dublin-born Grania Moyles' husband Mick is a trader on the floor of the Liffe exchange. Like the Ipsens, they are able to support their family - they have four sons - without difficulty. "Mick earns an extraordinary salary according to 99 per cent of the country, but it's modest by exchange standards."

Mick Moyles says: "I'm enormously laid-back. I never get too flustered, which is one of the greatest attributes you can have in the market - to stay calm. But I know of one local who shot himself - though I think he was unstable - and another who had a heart attack in the pit. He was carried out and they went on dealing. You find all types down there. They share the fact that they don't see money in the same way as the average person."