Reader's Digest UK December 2022

There’s only one place true crime enthusiasts should look – CBS Reality. Home to expert-led true crime, the channel investigates authentic criminal cases through first-hand interviews, archive footage and key evidence. Watching experts dissect a crime and piece together the jigsaw is fascinating and makes us feel safer too. But there are rare times when mistakes are made, sometimes with devastating consequences. This is the focus of CBS Reality’s unmissable one-off special The Murder That Changed Britain. Premiering on 15th November at 10pm, the special features a crime that changed Britain – the murder of Rachel Nickell. In July 1992, Nickell, a 23-year-old mother of one, was stabbed to death on Wimbledon Common in broad daylight. One of the highest-profile cases in recent times, the frantic investigation led to one of the most notorious…

Welcome to a very special Christmas edition of Reader’s Digest—it’s the issue I look forward to the most each year. Filled with heartwarming real-life tales, mouth-watering recipes, and nourishing tips and recommendations, ranging from health to Yuletide reads, it never fails to put me in a festive mood. This month’s issue is no different, offering a look at inspiring stories of kindness at Christmas on p75, a vintage guide to sumptuous baking recipes on p124, and a wonderfully wintry feature on Greenland’s wildlife—among many others. And have you noticed that the magazine feels a bit thicker? We hope you’ll enjoy the extra pages brimming with festive competitions and great prizes to make your Christmas just that little bit more special. After eight years and 97 issues, this will be my final edition of…

We pay £50 for Letter of the Month and £30 for all others LETTER OF THE MONTH What an interesting and helpful feature “Rise Above Pain” was, listing the remedies and strategies that can help people in pain enjoy life again. I’ve been living with chronic pain for more than a decade. After a fall from a bike, I had to have surgery. Since then I’ve had a constant headache, back and hip pain, tingling in my hands and feet, muscle soreness and random pain too. After many doctor’s visits and tests, I had a variety of diagnoses and was told I was suffering from depression too. It wasn’t a shock. I’ve had a hard time adjusting to all the different pains and sometimes let my symptoms control my life. I felt a ray…

WHEN DOES CHRISTMAS begin in your household? The day you get the decorations down from the attic? The first afternoon you mull some wine? The morning you first tackle a chocolate orange for breakfast? For me, it’s the evening we watch The Muppet Christmas Carol, Disney’s enduring 1992 retelling of the Dickens story, with added Americanisms and fur. For many years, this involved fetching a dusty VHS from the back of the cupboard, and would occur sometime in early December. Since the advent of Disney+, however—with the Muppets available on-demand 24/7, just one tap along from the Kardashians (insert your own gag here)—our annual home screening has been pulled ever earlier into autumn. This year, it was October 25. I was in a T-shirt. There were still leaves on the trees.…

WHEN HE WAS asked to join the new series of The Crown, Timothy Dalton didn’t hesitate to say yes, not least because the invitation came from none other than Lesley Manville. “I got a message from her saying she was playing Princess Margaret, would I come and play Peter Townsend?” Dalton relates. “I thought that was such a wonderful thing for her to do so of course I said yes. I also think it’s terrific television, beautifully made the way we used to make TV 20 years ago.” Townsend, played in the first series by Ben Miles, was the former RAF Group Captain and equerry to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. He had an affair with the latter’s younger sister until she ended it in 1955. In the show,…

MY EARLIEST MEMORY IS OF SITTING IN A HIGH CHAIR when I was nearly three and my mother feeding me spinach. It was so disgusting that I remember spitting it out. My mother was in the ATS [Auxiliary Territorial Service] during the Second World War, met my father at a dance and married very early at age 18. We moved around a lot when I was young—from Somerset to Scotland for some reason, then Guildford for another reason. But it seemed normal because I didn’t know any different. MY FATHER WAS A BOMBER PILOT DURING THE WAR, and he was badly injured when the plane he was flying crashed into another plane during take-off in Malta. He suffered severe burns on his hands and his face, and he later had to…