After the laid-back Sixties and street-marching Seventies, hard work appears to be back in vogue.

‘I’m here on a hit-man contract, then I’ll transfer, make a packet and retire in 10 years,’ says one Porsche-driving, chain-smoking, 25-year-old executive. He is typical of the new breed of work-loving, reward-seekers who drive themselves to their limits.

Trend-watcher Peter York says: ‘The number of kids who want to go to business school, who are going into business as if it were a totally new idea, is phenomenal. ‘

The ’80s mark the coming of the Age of Hard Work and Longer Hours, a trend, according to George Bickerstaffe of the Institute of Directors, that is permeating organizations right across the board (and Board).

Mr Bickerstaffe believes that today’s Mr Average Businessman barely has time to sleep. He cites the City whizz kid whose gargantuan salary demands a super-human performance to justify it.

Peter York, 38, is an owner-director of the SRU group of consultancy businesses, a TV and magazine journalist and co-author of the Sloane Ranger Handbook.

He says: ‘Executive used to be a euphemism for having perks and a high-flying time. But what is relatively new is the idea of the excitement being the business itself and not simply the rewards. ‘

Clive Bannister, a 27-year-old management consultant (the Company Man), works until he drops. He does a fairly consistent 12-hour day, seven days a week and has had one week’s holiday this year.

‘If you work hard,’ he says, ‘you end up feeling good and valuing your every action because you put so much sweat into it .. at the same time I am getting on faster and I’m also very well paid. ‘

He does not even pay lip service to stress or illness. ‘The former is a piece of self-serving mythology. ‘ And the latter? ‘I don’t get ill because I don’t have the time,’ he says.

Stanley Berwin, 60-year-old founder and senior partner of solicitors SJ Berwin & Co, starts work at 6.30am and often does not finish until 2am. He says work has always come first and second, family third and other commitments a poor fourth. ‘I regret that I never saw my children grow up,’ he says. ‘My wife has been an angel. ‘

But he does not believe that such marathon efforts are a sign of the times, maintaining that all very successful men have always had to work extremely hard.

His fundamental motive for working so hard is a desire to prove himself. To my suggestion that he has proved himself already and that he could lessen his workload, he says: ‘That would be retiring. ‘

To most people, the public face of Sandy Gall is as an ITN newscaster. But he is equally a veteran war correspondent, having covered Vietnam, the Congo and Amin’s Uganda. And recently he returned from a perilous two months dodging Russian patrols in Afghanistan in search of the guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Masud.

This was Gall’s third trip to Afghanistan and his second filming of Masud. He has also recorded how the Pashtuns, the majority tribe, were faring. This time, he wanted to see how Masud was progressing. ‘I wanted to go back because it is a disgrace that the fighting is still not being reported properly. After all, it is their Vietnam’, he says.

After waiting a month in Islamabad – ‘I hadn’t realised the high passes were snowbound and we physically couldn’t get across’ – Gall, along with an ex-army man and a cameraman, were smuggled over the Pakistani border with the help of the Mujahiden guerrillas. They were disguised in local shalwar (baggy trousers) and kameez (long shirts).

The trio entered Afghanistan in the north and spent two weeks trekking through Nuristan to the Panjsher Valley. They then went up to Takhar Province and northwards to Farkhar. For a country still at war, it was a remarkably incident-free trip.

The team twice drove in a captured Russian jeep. Otherwise they rode or walked across mountainous terrain in uninterrupted stints of 10 to 12 hours. Food was scarce and they survived on vast quantities of rice and tough goat – supplemented with their own supplies of bully beef, tinned sardines and tinned cheese.

When they found Masud in Farkhar, Gall discovered a remarkably able and well-organized commander who is still full of confidence. ‘He was half-way to becoming a Tito-type overall partisan leader and running the war very well in his own northeastern constituency. ‘

Masud was planning an attack on an Afghan army garrison of about 300 people, just north of Farkhar. It was heavily defended, with machine-gun posts on the surrounding hills.

On August 17, Masud attacked with heavy weaponry, including machine-guns and devastating BM12 multi-rocket launchers. The cameraman went into the thick of the action, and the battle footage should be spectacular. Masud claimed a major victory, finally overrunning the last post in a new attack 36 hours later.

Gall feels that Masud is making headway, but that he is an exception. There have been huge changes since his last visit. ‘The balance of power has shifted in favour of the Soviets and Afghan governmen,’ he says. The Russians have improved their tactics in the past two years and adapted conventional tank-fighting methods to guerrilla warfare in the mountainous country, employing more special Spetnaz forces to carry out strike operations.

‘In many areas the Mujahideen have been put under extreme pressure and some are very dispirited. But there is no suggestion they will give up, even if they are beaten to their knees. ‘

However, Gall is wary of generalization, pointing out that covering and assessing the war is almost impossible. ‘You have to walk or go on horseback, so you only get to see one area. You rely on other people’s reports. ‘ Still, he will attempt an assessment in a one-hour documentary on ITV in November – after considering the plight of the Afghan nation and profiling Masud.

Their ‘plight’ he says, is that one-third of the population (5 million people) are refugees in Pakistan and Iran. There are also swarms of internal refugees living with relatives in shanty towns or caves in the hills.

‘Guerrillas are a very elusive target, and so every day, Russians are carrying out atrocities and killing civilians. It is not reported because there is nobody there to do so.

In December it will be seven years since the Russians invaded. ‘It must rank as one of the great tragedies of the century, one of the most vicious wars and the biggest since the Second World War’, says Gall. ‘It shows no sign of letting up. ‘

Nor does Gall. The proceeds of the Boisdale Ball for Afghanistan on September 25 will be divided between Afghan Aid and the Sandy Gall Appeal, which supplies Afghans with artificial limbs.

When Vanessa, a battered wife for 10 years, met a battered husband, she found it difficult not to laugh. A year later, she takes the issue very seriously indeed. ‘I think it may be worse for men’, she says. ‘They aren’t likely to tell anyone and there isn’t a refuge for them to go to. ‘

These are the problems being addressed by Jenni Manners, co-ordinator of the Women’s Aid Centre, a refuge for battered women in Swindon, Wiltshire.

‘I was extremely puzzled when men started phoning asking for help. From 1980, three or four would ring a year’, she says. ‘But since 1985 I’ve taken about three dozen calls, mainly from the Swindon area. ‘

She suspects the incidence of violence perpetrated on husbands could be almost as prevalent as ‘wife bashing’ – itself the most unreported crime until the 1970s.

Can the phenomenon be accounted for by the growth of feminism, or has it always been around? Jenni Manners has no explanation for the sudden increase in calls from men, but decided to take some action. Earlier this year, a team from the centre went to visit the world’s only refuge for battered men in Vasteras, Sweden. There 15 people are involved in offering help on the telephone.

The team was impressed, and now the local Labour council is looking into funding a 24-hour help line and refuge for battered husbands in Swindon. The only problem is that the men who Jenni Manners has counselled are unwilling to be publicly involved in the project. So the scheme will be run by the women from the centre. Ironically, the male victims who call up often feel a woman would be more sympathetic.

The popular image of a battered husband is ridiculous. ‘People have this idea of a wimp of 5ft 2in being bashed by his 16-stone wife. Nothing could be further from the truth’, says Jenni Manners, fresh from advising a client of 6ft 4in who was beaten by his 5ft 4in wife. She has never counselled a male victim shorter than 5ft 8in. The violence ranges from kicking and scratching to stabbings with potato peelers and kitchen knives.

‘Kitchen implements and boiling water are favoured. But then I have seen a couple of men with fractured skulls. One was coshed with a brick while he was building a patio, and the other got whacked with a piece of wood after suggesting to his wife that they should see a marriage guidance counsellor. Ashamed to confess they are the victims of their wives’ assaults (and having no refuge), many men enter hospitals claming to have bumped into a door or dropped a kettle. Frequently no one beyond the immediate family will know what is really going on. When Jenni Manners sees the men – ‘occasionally in their homes, but more often on a park bench or in a pub’ – they often admit to a catalogue of injuries.

The men come from all walks of life. ‘It exists in every class, just as violence towards women does. It’s just that the higher up the social strata you go, the more ways there are to get out of the situation. ‘

She has counselled managing directors, solicitors, lorry drivers and policemen. Usually they are in their mid-30s to late 40s. ‘If there is any trait in common, it is that they are caring men – often exceeding the generally accepted male role in terms of looking after the kids – and they are respectful of women. ‘

Colin, a taxi driver, is one such example. Extremely reticent, he is 26 and looks 10 years older. (His wife, an office clerk, was 11 years his senior. ) He put up with his wife’s violence – which started just three months after they married – for six years. She would draw blood from him with her bare fists and sharp rings or hit him over the head with a frying pan.

‘Initially, I was quite shocked – I didn’t know what to do, because she used to go crazy – but I would never hit a woman’, he explains. The outbursts occurred bi-monthly and were, as with wife bashing, worse when his spouse had been drinking. Did he ever take steps to restrain her?

‘At first I did. I used to try to calm her down by talking to her, but that made no difference. Sometimes I sat her on the floor, but then she would re-attack when I was off my guard. ‘Jenni Manners confirms that restraining the assailants tends to increase them even more.

Colin got used to it. ‘I knew what to expect and found it easier just to let her get it over with. ‘

He could not make out why she did it. He simply knew that he was ‘frightened and didn’t have anywhere to go’, and that retaliating could have made things worse. He was also worried that it was his fault and that it would recur in another relationship. He did not tell anyone.

‘You’re ashamed of making a fool of yourself. People would think you were wet and not a proper man. ‘

He thought of notifying the police, but knew they dislike getting involved in domestic situations. ‘Help, my wife’s bashing me’, is likely to provoke ridicule. In Jenni Manners’s experience, those who have been to doctors are greeted with disbelief, followed by a prescription for tranquillizers.

Then by chance one day Colin picked up the once-battered Vanessa in his taxi – and moved out to live with her. His wife still comes around to terrorize him at Vanessa’s house, ‘out of jealousy, I think’. He found that an application for legal aid and an injunction met with derision. The court would think it was stupid, the lawyer said.

‘At least I’ve got to the stage now where I can tell people’, Colin says with relief.

Adam, a 36-year-old, 6ft fireman, endured his wife’s violence for 13 years before doing anything about it. He is now trying to ‘find himself’ through philosophy and psychology. ‘I would certainly hit back if a man attacked me,’ he says, ‘but I let her chuck bottles and plates, boiling water and hot dinners at me. ‘

Yet he maintains that he thought this was normal. ‘I don’t consider it a violent marriage, I thought all marriages were like that. ‘

‘Lots of men don’t see it as violence’, says Jenni Manners, ‘because deep down they feel that if the need arises, they can defend themselves by holding the woman down’.

Things came to a head when he was at home, having contracted cancer. Violent episodes started to occur as often as three times a week.

‘In the process of that strained couple of years, we had a role reversal – I was very happy to look after the kids and she returned to her job as a lab technician. I think she felt threatened in her role as a woman – and that manifested itself in further violence. It was her way of getting what she needed. It became too much – and she said she was leaving. ‘ He agreed on condition that she left the children.

The tendency on dissolution is to award home and children to the wife. Jenni explains that many of the men she has counselled fear that if they leave home, the violence will then be transferred to the children. The majority of men she has advised have been awarded custody.

It wasn’t until Adam sought Jenni’s advice – at the suggestion of a close friend in the social services – that he realized all his rights and the true extent of the violence in his marriage.

The help Jenni gives is recognition and support, with some guidance on legal and housing rights. It’s what these victims of the opposite sex want. ‘The men want to know that they’re not alone in their problem. Accommodation isn’t such a consideration. It’s easier for them just to walk out. ‘

The way things are going, Jenni expects to get a lot more calls from men. The calls always start: ‘I don’t know if you’ll want to talk to me. I’ve got a very strange problem ..’