PERHAPS it's one of Nature's design faults, but for some reason or other I look daft in a hat. Any hat.

If I go out shopping with my wife (which is something I avoid wherever possible because I'm not very good company on such expeditions) and we find ourselves in a clothes shop, she will often pop a hat on to my head before I can stop her.

"Ooh that looks lovely, Paul!" she will say as loudly as possible, to attract the attention of other customers.

I just stand there with a trilby or a country gentleman's tweed cap perched on my head, looking and feeling foolish. And the more foolish I feel, the funnier it is for her, which is a malicious trait in an otherwise kind person.

So there was a certain inevitability last weekend when the two of us, with a couple of friends, found ourselves outside the Photographer's Shop at the Blists Hill Victorian town, part of the Ironbridge Gorge Museums in Shropshire.

For £14, said the poster on the studio door, you can dress up in Victorian clothes and have yourself photographed.

Our wives fell about laughing at the prospect, while the other bloke and I were dragged, protesting helplessly, inside.

"Would you like to be Sherlock Holmes or a Victorian businessman?" the lady in the shop asked me, which is not the sort of question you face every day. On the basis that I would look marginally less stupid as a businessman, and had no intention of poncing around with a deerstalker, bent pipe and magnifying glass, I plumped for the latter.

The other poor chap somehow acquired a scarlet soldier's tunic, complete with sergeant's stripes, and a pillbox hat that made him look like Buttons.

As the men would be standing at the back, with wives seated in front of us, I was allowed to keep my jeans and trainers on. But on top, where it showed for the camera, I was kitted out in a black frock coat, wing collar, silk tie and - joy of joys as far as my wife was concerned - a grey top hat.

The women got the better end of the stick, of course, and looked elegant in flouncy dresses, large hats and a parasol.

"Look stern," said the photographer, which was no problem with the mood I was in, being asked to pay a half-share of fourteen quid to dress up and look like an idiot. "Now give me a half-smile," she asked. My half-smile comes out looking as though I'm about to be sick. "And now a big grin," she requested. I don't grin a lot, especially since I lost half a tooth near the front and discovered that it shows more than I imagined.

We left with a sepia-toned ten-by-eight print of the "stern" version, for which I had pulled my chin down and looked up at the camera for what I fondly imagined would be a realistically dour Victorian impression.

In truth, I looked like a mad axeman (albeit well-dressed) and my wife said you could see the whites of my eyes, as you might with a rabid dog.

Still, I'd had a laugh at her expense earlier in the day.

Blists Hill operates as a "working" Victorian town, with shops, a pub and local tradesmen. It even has its own currency - replica pre-decimal coins you can buy at the bank to spend during the day and which are a stark reminder of what inflation has done for us.

Ten quid gave me a handful of coppers and silver threepenny bits worth the equivalent of 10p today and we dived into the authentic spit-and-sawdust-style New Inn for a "cheap" drink.

"A pint of ale for me," I said to the barman, who was in character with his cloth cap, waistcoat and granddad shirt, and turned to ask my wife what she would like. "Have you got a cappuccino?" she inquired.