The Oldie October 2022

Prue Leith (p14) is a judge on The Great British Bake Off. She set up Leith’s restaurant and Leith’s School of Food and Wine. Her new book, Bliss on Toast, is based on her Oldie column. Mary Kenny (p24) has written for The Oldie since our first issue in 1992. She is author of Germany Calling (Lord Haw-Haw’s biography) and The Way We Were: Centenary Essays on Catholic Ireland. Roy Foster (p48) was Carroll Professor of Irish History at Oxford. He’s written biographies of W B Yeats, Charles Stewart Parnell and Lord Randolph Churchill. He was a Booker Prize judge in 2000. Justin Marozzi (p53) is a travel writer and historian. His books include The Man Who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus and Islamic Empires: The Cities That Shaped Civilisation: From Mecca to…

✻ Oldie Towers is in deep mourning after the death of Elizabeth II. Readers will find tributes to Her Majesty throughout this issue of the magazine. We mourn, too, writer and illustrator (and Oldie columnist) Raymond Briggs, who died in August at 88. The Old Un is delighted to learn that his wonderful, life-enhancing work is in no danger of being forgotten. The first major retrospective of Briggs’s artwork is currently at Kirkcudbright Galleries, Dumfries & Galloway (until 30th October), transferring to the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, County Durham (from 12th November until 26th February). This touring show features pictures from Briggs’s finest books, including The Snowman, Father Christmas, Fungus the Bogeyman and, Ethel & Ernest, a portrait of his parents. Often erroneously described as children’s books, Briggs’s graphic novels (as the Old Un’s grandchildren…

46% of men won’t eat out without dog Sunday Mirror Toilets to get a spruce up Cornish Times Sheriff blasts drunken 999 nuisance caller who said she was a vampire needing a Pot Noodle Press and Journal £15 for published contributions NEXT ISSUE The November issue is on sale on 19th October 2021. FREE SAMPLE COPY If you have a friend who would like a free sample of The Oldie, tell them to call 0800 8565867. GET THE OLDIE APP Go to App Store or Google Play Store. Search for Oldie Magazine and then pay for app. OLDIE BOOKS The Very Best of The Oldie Cartoons, The Oldie Annual 2022 and other Oldie books are available at: www.theoldie.co.uk/readerscorner/shop Free p&p. OLDIE NEWSLETTER Go to the Oldie website; put your email address in the red SIGN UP box.…

Is it time to burn my books? My wife has already told me she is getting rid of the lot the moment I go. So, given the cost-of-living crisis and the rocketing price of fuel, is this the year for me to clear the grate and set a match to all my treasured tomes? I have at least 10,000 volumes, and they’re worthless. I know because Rick Gekoski – since the 1980s, arguably the world’s leading dealer in literary archives – popped by to tell me so. It seems a signed first edition of one of E M Forster’s major novels might be of interest, but My Life in Music by Edward Heath not so much. (I have none of the former, and three of the latter.) As for the Korean and other…

With every week that passes, the unanswerables pile up until the heap threatens to dwarf Everest. If a segment of the British (let’s be frank – English) electorate regrets Boris Johnson’s passing, for example, why isn’t Albion Straitjackets Plc the fastest-rising blue chip on the Stock Exchange? Some mysteries are too familiar to bear too much repetition. So rather than belabour you with such conundrums as ‘What was Alf Ramsey thinking when he substituted Bobby Charlton against the Hun in the 1970 World Cup?’, I will focus on three relative novelties. These are presented, as with Eric Morley announcing the Miss World results, in reverse order of importance. 3) What kind of 16th wit (see below) quotes the old saw that it is better to travel than to arrive? 2) Why, despite the perpetual absence…

I have spent periods of my life going dotty. I also taught full-time until retirement and have had five books published by reputable houses – which I like to offset against my sojourns in the bin. One of those spells was in January 2006. I was one of the elect – I did not have to wear a striped dressing gown, unlike Joan, the hoyden who was approaching me. ‘You don’t mind me smoking?’ She put a fag to her lips and struck a match. We were in the dorm. ‘Yes, I do. It’s against the rules. There’s a smoking room provided.’ She repeated my words, mimicking my accent exactly. It was like looking into a fairground mirror where I saw a dressing-gowned me, twice the size, with wild, black, shoulder-length hair. But I was as…