Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2022 i The Oldie

Our muchloved deputy editor and patron saint of The Oldie, Jeremy Lewis, died in 2017, aged 75. In his memory, we run the Jeremy Lewis Prize, worth £500. It rewards the sort of writing that emulates Jeremy’s wit and lightness of touch in his books and journalism. What to write about In 400 words, recount a memory (similar to our Memory Lane column, on page 54 of this issue). Please begin by saying when the events you describe took place. How to send your entry Simply email your entry to editorial@theoldie.co.uk by 13th November 2022. Please mark it JEREMY LEWIS PRIZE.…

WHAT WERE Polish resettlement camps? Interviews with Rula Lenska, the actress now touring with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel play, often say she was born in St Neots, Cambridgeshire, my home town. In fact, she was born on 30th September 1947 at the Polish Resettlement Camp at Diddington, a tiny village about five miles away, although her birth was registered in St Neots. But what were resettlement camps? After the Second World War, many Polish refugees, including Rula’s aristocratic family, weren’t able to return to their homeland as they had supported the Western Allies. The British government took responsibility for them, founding the Polish Resettlement Corps in May 1946. The only way these people could be accommodated was by putting them into camps and barracks vacated by the Americans and…

The Saint On 4th October 1962, ITV aired the first television adaption of Leslie Charteris’s Saint novels. The star was the 34-yearold Roger Moore (1927-2017), then best known for Ivanhoe and Maverick. When the last adventure aired on 9th February 1969, 118 episodes later, many viewers regarded him as the ideal screen Simon Templar, surpassing even George Sanders. The Saint was made under the auspices of ITC, which specialised in ‘International Man of Mystery’ television series. The producers were the B-film veterans Robert S Baker and Monty Berman. Moore had previously attempted to buy the rights to the novels by Leslie Charteris (1907-93) but found the price beyond him. ITC’s MD, Lew Grade, wanted Patrick McGoohan to play Templar, but Baker and Berman thought he lacked humour. One early challenge…

The word of the decade - here’s hoping it isn’t the word of the century - is a Latin hybrid. Coronavirus comes from the Latin corona (‘crown’) and the Latin virus, originally meaning a poisonous secretion from snakes - ie a kind of venom. Used together, though, the words corona and virus these days have only one miserable meaning. Scientists gave the virus the name because those knobbly bits on the surface of the virus are like the crests and balls of a crown. Once again, even with the worst of modern horrors, it is the Latin language that put it first and put it best - unless ancient Greek got there first, by lending its alphabet to those horrible virus variants like Delta and Omicron. Latin lives on in…

I sympathise with Oscar Wilde, ill in his room at the Hotel d’Alsace in Paris, when he complained that he was fighting a duel to the death with his wallpaper. ‘One of us has to go,’ he decided. Left Bank wallpapers have not improved, as I discovered last weekend, confined for three days with food poisoning. It began on the Eurostar, where the food is execrable, especially in first class. They say that the restaurants in Paris, with only a few exceptions, have ‘gone off’, and the Eurostar is only politely preparing us for the gastronomic disappointments that lie ahead. But perhaps Paris itself has ‘gone off’. However, it wasn’t with Oscar that I identified in my distress, but with Gustav von Aschenbach, hapless hero of Thomas Mann’s love story:…

Country Mouse Fraser Harrison argued in a compelling book, Strange Land (1982), that we are all strangers now in the strange land of the countryside. Even the indigeni feel like tourists or outsiders, he says: ‘The landscape is rapidly becoming unknown as the agricultural areas are stripped of all the features which made the classic English countryside so distinctive and precious.’ There has been some restoration of hedges and tree-planting since 1982, but I have never felt particularly at home in my terraced cottage at the end of our village. Perhaps it takes two or three generations to feel at home in an adopted county - ie one that isn’t your birthplace. As outsiders, we don’t fit particularly well into the essentially still-feudal character of the village. There are two…

Sophia Waugh: School Days ‘Is this a hill you are really prepared to die on?’ the more woke of my sons-in-law asked me when I told him the subject of this month’s column. And the answer is yes. On behalf of my brothers or sisters (or are we no longer allowed to say that? Perhaps I should stick with siblings) in education, I am prepared to nail my colours to the mast of grammar, specifically in relation to pronouns. It is not unusual to read a story of a teacher sacked because he or she (not they, you note) refused to use the pronouns of a student’s choice. One teacher said he would do so, once he had received the parents’ consent; another refused on the grounds of his religion.…

John Shepherd, owner of the Chelsea delicatessen Partridges, gave a eulogy for his brother Sir Richard Shepherd, Tory MP and Maastricht rebel, at Holy Trinity, Sloane Square. The brothers were partners setting up the deli. John told how Richard was born in Aberdeen and moved in 1943 to Baltimore, where their father worked for Imperial Airways. In 1961, he became an undergraduate at the LSE with Robert Kilroy-Silk and Mick Jagger in his year group. Later he studied politics at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna, where he acquired a lifelong affection for Italy. Then he became a secondary-school teacher and had an ice-cream franchise outside Earl’s Court Underground station. This led to a shop, then eight shops and finally Partridges. He spoke of ‘the business…

‘So it goes.’ That was the catchphrase of the late Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007), author of Slaughterhouse-Five, born 100 years ago, on 11th November. He used the catchphrase in our first exchange of notes in 1998. I’d sent him a schoolgirlish fan letter, and he wrote back asking me if I could do him a small favour. I was living in Seattle, and Vonnegut wondered if I could supply him with one or two bird’s-eye views of the local scenery for a story he was writing. ‘We authors should stick together,’ he added, after apologising profusely for the imposition. Talk about flattering. Vonnegut never followed up to say whether his story was published, and if so where. But he did later send me three of his books, each effusively autographed, along…

History In the early 1860s, a young Londoner, who loved his city and was worried that it was vanishing before his eyes, took up a relatively newfangled instrument – a camera – to record what was happening in the streets around him. The photographer’s name was William Strudwick (1834-1910). He photographed the riverside at Lambeth, opposite the fairly new Houses of Parliament, showing Barry and Pugin’s fantasy Tudor creation still flanked by the traffic and industry of a working river: mast- and oar-makers, boatbuilders and Finch’s flour mills. Lambeth still oozed with the odours of manufactures little changed since the Middle Ages. Strudwick photographed warehouses to which bones were brought by barge and boiled for soap, crushed for fertiliser or picked apart to make combs and knife handles. And there,…

Media Matters When an unknown politician is promoted to the Cabinet, the Press is generally full of informative profiles. But when a new editor of a major national newspaper is appointed, there tends to be little coverage. So it was when Tony Gallagher was recently made editor of the Times, considered by many the grandest job in Fleet Street. Omertà ruled. Papers don’t like to display their linen in public, dirty or otherwise. Not, of course, that there is anything remotely unwholesome about Gallagher. His curriculum vitae is unusual. For one thing, perhaps because he comes from Irish stock, he is a practising Roman Catholic. I believe William Rees-Mogg is the only Times editor of the modern era who also looked to Rome, though in almost all other respects he…

A momentous day, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer made his U-turn over the 45p tax band. The tin-eared Chancellor was grilled by Nick Robinson on Radio 4. Over on Times Radio, Joan Bakewell and Will Self discussed the calamitous U-turn. Self uses words like synecdoche and fissiparous, and that only adds to the enjoyment. Bakewell is brilliant. So how dare Amol Rajan complain about the posh accents of privileged RP-speaking presenters? Mention Rajan’s name among educated over-50s and hear a chorus of disapproval: the glottal-stopping gabbler is a torment to their ears. He recently told an interviewee, ‘You were very fortuitous with the pandemic…’ – meaning fortunate. Yet the fortuitous Cambridge graduate presumes to assume the helm of University Challenge. What listeners and UC contestants need is clarity, audibility,…

PARIS COMES TO PICCADILLY This month, I was going to bring you my review of ABBA Voyage with the former Culture Secretary. The date – 8th September – had long been nailed in the diary. That was the immensely sad and heavy night Her late Majesty died. So Nadine Dorries and I were not there, you will be unsurprised to hear, to be dancing queens on that occasion. And that’s why, after mourning had concluded, I took my daughter to Paris in La Belle Époque – or the closest thing to it: the Moulin Rouge! musical that is rocking London’s West End. And a right old knees-up it is, too. The Piccadilly Theatre has been Nicky Haslamed into an extravagant, red-and-gold bordello set, complete with elephant and turning windmill, spangled…

HAZELNUTS I was surprised to learn that, only a few years ago, a pit was uncovered on the island of Colonsay, filled with vast numbers of hazelnut shells which were dated to around 6000 BC. I had not associated hazelnut trees with Scotland, and certainly not with windswept Hebridean islands. Kent is the place where most hazelnuts are grown commercially in this country, the most reliable variety being the Kentish Cob. Cobnuts and filberts are similar types of hazelnut. Kentish Cobs are in fact filberts, meaning that the nuts are of a longer shape than the spherical cobs. However, most are of a colour that encouraged Petruchio, attempting to seduce Kate in The Taming of the Shrew, to tell her she was ‘as brown in hue / As hazelnuts and…

This month’s Oldie wine offer, in conjunction with DBM Wines, is a 12-bottle case comprising four bottles each of three wines: a racy dry white from the high plains around Valladolid; a classic, warming red from the south of France; and a Bordeaux with plenty of cellar age. Or you can buy cases of each individual wine. Verdejo ‘Silga’, Alvarez y Diez, Rueda 2021, offer price £10.50, case price £126.00 Zesty dry white from some of the oldest vines in the region, perfect with shellfish. Guilhem, Moulin de Gassac, IGP Vin de Pays de l’Hérault 2021, offer price £9.99, case price £119.88 Classic, fruity, generous Languedoc red made from Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Carignan. Château Floréal Laguens, Bordeaux Supérieur 2018, offer price £12.99, case price £155.88 Archetypal mature claret at…

THE MAGNIFICENT AUSTIN 7 It’s surely right to mark centenaries. We’ll doubtless hear much about the birth of the British Broadcasting Company, with John Reith appointed general manager in December 1922. We’ll also hear something of the 1922 founding of the Swallow Sidecar Company by William Lyons, who went on to produce a range of fast saloons known by the initials SS. By 1945, however, that was felt to have unfortunate connotations and the name was changed to Jaguar. But we’ll probably hear less about the centenary of the humble Austin 7. Humble but mighty, conceived and marketed as ‘The Motor for the Millions’ (though it was well into the 1950s before most of the millions could afford cars), it sold 291,000 before production ended in 1939. It was licensed…

In Extremadura you will find the essence of Spain: land of the conquistadors and the birthplace of 20 American countries. Largely untouched by tourism, it boasts some of the best-preserved historical cities in the country, including World Heritage Sites Mérida, Cáceres and Guadalupe, all of which we will be visiting. Its stunning National Parks are home to a plethora of wildlife, including some of Spain’s rarest birds and animals. Instead of hotels, we have chosen the paradors of Placencia and Trujillo (www.parador.es); the latter occupies the former convent of Santa Clara, with its Renaissance cloisters. The tour is being led by Paul and Dawn Canham, veterans of more than 30 Oldie reader trips. Through family, they know the area extremely well. ITINERARY •Tuesday 2nd May - Arrive in Placencia Depart…

IN COMPETITION No 285 you were invited to write a poem called-A Coat. Dog hairs and repainting the kitchen attracted some poetic energy, but most competitors chose as their subject the overcoat. Frank Annable’s narrator sank into mud and death on the Western Front: ‘The shell’s percussion brought me here, / no time for fear, just lifted, weightless as a fishing float. / Broken body, uniform, boots and great coat.’ Joe Cushnan was in celebratory mood: ‘I always loved my duffle, / Wooden toggles held by loops, / Simple, no kerfuffle.’ Fay Dickinson remembered an awkward job interview: ‘I suddenly boomeranged backwards / As my coat belt caught on the handle of the door.’ Commiserations to them and to Janet Bettesworth, Ronnie Wood, Keith Baker, DA Prince, Katie Mallett, Peter…

Was there ever a living monarch about whom so many books were written as Queen Elizabeth II? Surely not. But for those whose bookcases cannot bulge enough with monarchical blockbusters, there are lots more tributes to the late sovereign on the way in time for Christmas - and doubtless many more will be pouring out in years to come. Author James Owen has written the text for a lavishly illustrated doorstopper of a book: Queen Elizabeth: Commemorating her Life and Reign 1926-2022 (Times Books, £25) which will guarantee hours of Christmas Day browsing. And broadcaster Tessa Dunlop has produced yet another account of the enduring romance that underpinned the 70-year marriage of Elizabeth and Prince Philip. It’s a familiar story, beginning in the austere, post-war days of the 1940s and…

My travel highlight this year was Budapest. It is cheaper than Prague and more interesting, and I commend it for Wenceslas cheer. Highlights within the highlight included Puccini’s La fanciulla del West at the fine Neo-Renaissance opera house designed by Miklós Ybl. Tickets are easy to purchase in advance (opera.hu; find the English-language button top right) and my excellent stalls seat cost £25. Second, the Budapest thermal bath experience. I recommend Dandar in a post-industrial district of Pest. This is oldie heaven, especially in winter, with floating chess boards and snoozing stations. Again, easy to book in advance but given the paucity of tourists in the Hungarian capital you don’t really need to (en.dandarfurdo.hu). Thirdly, I could have spent a week on the top floor of the National Gallery (MNG)…

Partridges of Sloane Square has created this Christmas Treats Hamper in a wicker basket specially for Oldie readers. It includes: Partridges smoked salmon (227g); smoked duck breast (40g); Italian saucisson (238g); Brillat Savarin cheese; Bath soft cheese; pear, date and Cognac chutney; dill sauce; Fine Cheese Walnut and Honey EVO crackers (i25g); Millers Water Crackers (70g); and a bottle of Partridges’ Sauvignon Blanc (75c!). HOW TO ORDER: Exclusive Oldie price of£109 inc. mainland UK delivery. Use discount code CT1 at checkout partridges.co.uk Tel: 020 7730 0651…

Why wouldn’t you try and write a Christmas hit? Imagine being Noddy Holder. Once a year, at the first mention of mulled wine, Merry Christmas Everybody crackles from every available radio and streaming device and the heavens open and pour cold, hard cash upon the tousled head of the eternally well-heeled former Slade frontman. The same goes for Roy Wood of Wizzard, author of the seasonally unavoidable I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday. Chris Rea’s Driving Home For Christmas will keep him knee-deep in port and walnuts for eternity and beyond. Practically everyone of any commercial standing has had a crack at this lucrative caper and many of these opportunistic punts are well worth investigating. The news in 2009 that the normally contained and philosophical Bob Dylan was releasing…

Cosmo Landesman (p25) founded the Modern Review in 1991 with his thenwife, Julie Burehill, and Toby Young. He writes about his son’s suicide and his book Jack and Me: How NOT To Live After Loss. Robert Bathurst (p57) was David in five series of Cold Feet and Sergeant Wilson in Dad’s Army: The Lost Episodes. He starred in Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell. He was in Love, Loss & Chianti this summer. Daisy Dunn (p59) is author of Not Far from Brideshead: Oxford between the Wars. She also wrote Catullus’s Bedspread, In the Shadow of Vesuvius and the Ladybird Guide to Homer. Rick Stroud (p88) is author of Kidnap in Crete: the True Story of the Abduction of a Nazi General. He wrote Lonely Courage about the women of SOE. He’s…

Gyles Brandreth’s Diary What for you were the most moving moments during the coverage of the Queen’s funeral? For me it was, probably, the first sight of her coffin being borne on the shoulders of those fine young soldiers - or possibly her groom, Terry Pendry, on the Long Walk at Windsor, standing, head bowed, with the Queen’s pony, Emma, as the royal hearse drove Her Majesty home for the last time. Because I was part of the BBC team covering it all, every day over the ten days between her death and the funeral, I found myself in London walking from Green Park tube station across the park to the Victoria Monument outside Buckingham Palace where the BBC (alongside scores of other broadcasters from across the world) had set…

WHAT IS BeReal? BeReal is a smartphone application that allows you to share photographs of yourself with your friends and the world at large. It is the Generation Z social media phenomenon of 2022. By August, it had gained 10 million daily active users, 55 per cent of whom are estimated to be aged 16 to 24. ‘Not another social network!’ I hear you cry. And, funnily enough, that’s exactly how BeReal pitches itself - as an antidote to the more established photo-sharing platforms. ‘BeReal won’t make you famous,’ it reassures you when you sign up. ‘If you want to become an influencer, you can stay on TikTok and Instagram.’ All BeReal asks of you is to post a single unfiltered picture per day. Well, two pictures actually. It uses…

When my son Jack was a small boy, I carried him on my shoulders - and I carried him in my heart - everywhere I went. But then the small boy became the troubled teenager and the troubled teenager became the tragic young man: Jack killed himself in 2015, aged 29. What happened? Life happened. Somewhere between his teens and his twenties, Jack (my son with my ex-wife, writer Julie Burchill) became one of those Lost Boys who get stuck in a life-long adolescence. They never grow up, preferring to give up on life - before they’ve begun to live. These are tough times for young men - as the disturbing rates of suicide and the growth in mental-health problems show. Lost Boys like Jack are often depressed, self-destructive, addicted…

The cost-of-living crisis will push millions of people in Britain into food poverty. The predictions grow more apocalyptic by the day. Private Fraser in Dad’s Army was right. We’re all doomed. Doomed. But hold on. We’ve been here before - and in far more threatening circumstances. In two world wars, Germany’s submarine offensives tried to starve Britain into submission. In both cases, allotments came to the rescue - not completely, but they did make a significant contribution to the nation’s larder. They enlisted civilians in a war effort which was also a great morale-booster, with the pithy slogan ‘Dig for Victory’. There is no sign that the Government is considering the wartime measures to requisition land for extra allotments. But the National Allotment Society (NAS) is quietly preparing for a…

Mary Kitten’s Fashion Tips It’s an inconvenient truth that complexion quality is 70 per cent down to genetics and only 30 per cent down to the effort we put into careful curation. Still, there is absolutely no excuse for throwing in the towel if your mother looked a wreck. The mothers of today’s oldies simply didn’t know how damaging sunbathing was, nor how dehydrating to wash their faces roughly with soap and water. Today, we know that sunbathing is ageing and we cleanse our faces with special unguents before gently patting in moisturiser. In South Korea, where beauty culture is so important, a demanding skincare regime - involving double cleansing, toning, masks, sun protection and moisturisers - begins in early girlhood. But there is more to looking good than skin…

When her daughters, Lilibet and Margaret Rose, were growing up, Queen Elizabeth decided it would be a good idea for them to learn about literature. She asked her friend Osbert Sitwell to organise a poetry evening for the teenage princesses. Osbert and Edith Sitwell, persona] friends of the Royal Family, were flamboyant and entertaining in their renditions of poems from Façade - the half-panto, half-Dada Sitwell miscellany, largely written by Edith and set to music by William Walton. But then - as the Queen Mother told me when she was recalling the episode - ‘This lugubrious man who seemed like a bank manager got up and read to us from his poem; I think it was called The Desert. I could see the King’s shoulders were heaving, as he tried…

Postcards from the Edge I was edgily nervous hosting a soirée recently in my native Dublin. My great fear was that arguments and quarrels would break out among a roomful of people who had very different opinions on all sorts of touchy subjects. There were strong republicans and covert monarchists, pro-Europeans and Eurosceptics, Catholics, Protestants and atheists, and I felt sure voices would be raised in verbal combat. But no: all was sunny. People got along quite harmoniously, without anyone being dull or bland. And this is part of my analysis: as we get older, we become nicer. We grow more tolerant. We allow for other people’s strong feelings about any number of issues. We understand that political or social attitudes aren’t just about the politics or the issues: they…

• There are more than 14,000 known uses for salt. • Salt kills poison ivy, removes rust and cleans bamboo furniture. • Laplanders put salt in coffee. • The Aztecs produced salt by evaporating their urine. • Salt has low toxicity but is fatal in large doses. In ancient China, a traditional way to commit suicide was to eat a pound of salt. • Until 2017, salt production in China was a state monopoly, lasting more than 2,000 years. • In Europe during the Middle Ages salt was so expensive that it was known as ‘white gold’. • Each winter, up to two million tonnes of rock salt are spread on the UK’s roads. • The UK’s salt mines have 140 miles of tunnels - almost as long as the M5.…

The Doctor's Surgery It used to be a first principle of childcare that children should be sought out and told to stop whatever they were doing, irrespective of what it was. The medical profession has become a bit like parents of yore: epidemiology has by now conclusively proved that all pleasurable habits are bad for health. In other words, whatever you do, you must stop it. For a brief time, there was an exception to this rule, and it concerned alcohol. When you plotted a graph of alcohol consumption against longevity, there resulted in what was called a J-shaped curve. Those who abstained completely lived rather less long than those who drank a little - a little being, for most doctors, less than they themselves drank. My predecessor on this…

In January 1953, I was serving aboard a Royal Navy sloop in the West Indies and our home port was Kingston, Jamaica. The golden sands, cricket and calypsos were among its many attractions. My girlfriend, Paula, was a regular worshipper at the local Baptist church and insisted I accompany her one Sunday when a celebrated faith healer was due to take the service. On the stage, before a packed congregation, a band accompanied a gospel choir. The pastor’s text was: ‘Those that are first shall be last, and those that are last shall be first.’ He held his audience spellbound but then, unfortunately, his gaze fell on me: ‘I see that we have a visitor from the mother country and I want him to know that he is most welcome.’…

Darling By India Knight Fig Tree £14.99 India Knight’s Darling is based on The Pursuit of Love (1945), Nancy Mitford’s most popular and cherished satirical novel about the aristocratic Radlett family during the interwar years. Knight’s updated version of the book is set in 2021 and, in keeping with the structure of the original, the story focuses on the wayward and alluring Linda Radlett, and is narrated by her less glamorous cousin, Fran (Fanny in Mitford’s book). The Pursuit of Love is a hard act to pastiche. It is beloved by generations of readers (and writers) and is based on Mitford’s own Oxfordshire childhood during a time when fascism hovered over Europe (and would later become much associated with two of the Mitford sisters). ‘The Radletts,’ wrote Mitford in the…

Siena: The Life and Afterlife of a Medieval City By Jane Stevenson Apollo £20 The best place to watch the Palio di Siena is by the start. For my first time – decades ago – I secured a good vantage point at that spot, by clambering on to a fence that rings the course. By the time horses finally arrived in the Piazza del Campo, after the two-hour medieval pageant, 50,000 spectators ached for release. As the jockeys embarked on the long, nerve-shredding process of lining up at the start rope, a teenager hauled herself up and, for balance, hugged me tightly from behind. She began to moan and then, when she could stand the tension no more, to scream an imprecation: ‘Cazzo! Cazzo! Entra! Entra!’ I won’t translate that.…

There is such a thing as too much couth. American humorist S J Perelman (1904-79) explaining why, after several years in London, he was returning to New York Of one thing I am certain. We are not here in order to have a good time. Ludwig Wittgenstein Book by Lady Clodagh; Another Book by the same author. Deborah Devonshire on good book titles, 1998 Emptiness always goes with cleverness… All brains and no intelligence. The smarter, the stupider. Philip Roth, American Pastoral (1997) You may pick up just enough education to hate people who say, ‘It’s a secret between he and I.’ J D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (1951) If I hadn’t got a First, I would never have picked myself up to do much except possibly teach…

The Walk-In (ITV), a five-part drama based on the plot by a far-right group to kill the MP Rosie Cooper, explores why young men become white supremacists. The first episode opened with the attempted beheading of Dr Sarandev Bhambra by Zack Davies, who attacked his victim with a machete in the Mold branch of Tesco in 2015, and closed with the assassination of the MP Jo Cox in 2016. The central characters are Robbie Mullin (Andrew Ellis), an overweight 22-year-old whose best friend is his dog, and Matthew Collins (Stephen Graham), a former member of the BNP and National Front, now employed by the civil-rights group Hope Not Hate. Robbie’s political awakening begins when, as an electrician’s mate in Cheshire, he is barred from entering a Muslim household containing young…

WINE SCIENCE In 1924, the esoteric philosopher Rudolf Steiner delivered eight lectures on what he called ‘anthroposophic agriculture’. Later known as ‘biodynamics’, it pre-dates organic farming by about 20 years. None of Steiner’s lectures mentioned vineyards but, his influence on winemaking has been profound. Despite the bizarre intricacies of the nine ‘preparations’ required – one involves stuffing yarrow blossoms into a red deer’s bladder, putting it in the sun during summer, then burying it over winter and retrieving it in spring, before diluting it at homeopathic levels with ‘dynamised’ water – many winemakers worldwide have adopted Steiner’s doctrines. In part, this might be seen as a healthy corrective to an over-reliance on chemical fertilisers and pesticides. In Burgundy, for instance, where biodynamics now has strong roots, soils had become so…

The death of any prominent figure, let alone a head of state, inevitably mobilises historians and biographers, who become anxious to see the late person’s archive. These items can be extremely valuable. You may recall the commotion in 1995 when Winston Churchill’s archive was bought by the Heritage Lottery Fund for about £12m, prompting the possibly harsh joke that the Churchill family had manged to win the lottery without buying a ticket. Things are different now; think of your own archive. As you are a reader of this column, I bet that a lot of the notes you write and receive are transmitted electronically and locked behind passwords. How is your biographer going to cope with that? Webwatch For my latest tips and free newsletter, go to www.askwebster.co.uk Flight tracker…

What was your reaction to the sad news about the Queen? I met Her Majesty only cursorily, a few times. She had an aura of calm and kindness. I can’t think why, given the media attention at the time. I will miss her. Is there anything you can’t leave home without? Marmite, clean socks and underpants, and a straw hat. Is there something you really miss? My doggies and my daughters, but we take Miss Daisy to France. When she barks, she goes, ‘Oh, oh, oh,’and by the time she leaves, she goes, ‘Eu, eu, eu…’ What’s your favourite destination? I went to Rome in 1960 when my father [Sir Harry Llewellyn, Bt, an Olympic gold medallist in showjumping] was chef d’équipe of the British team for the Olympic Games.…

My husband's mini-strokes Q For various reasons, I’m sure my husband is having the odd transient ischaemic attack mini-strokes. He’s had a few ‘episodes’ where he feels very peculiar and he can’t speak properly and has a terrible headache. These don’t last longer than about 20 seconds before he’s back to perfectly normal, but they worry me. He’s going to see the doctor next week but only about an ingrown toenail. He refuses to mention these episodes and won’t let me go with him. I was wondering if I could write to the doctor behind his back. He’d kill me if he found out, of course … so I’m worried. Maria Osborne, Cornwall A I’d certainly write to the doctor and mark it ‘Strictly personal’. If you send it to the…

Cheese, please Keep it traditional this year with Colston Bassett Baby Stilton half at £31.25 (inc. p&p) from affineurs The Bath Cheese Company. Don’t baste the dear little thing with port, just scoop from the middle with a spoon and save the last crusty bits for potting-up (as they did in Mrs Beeton’s day) with an equal volume of softened butter, a dash of tabasco and a slug of whisky or brandy; keep in the fridge and serve it with celery sticks or a crisp apple. It’s gorgeous on toast for breakfast (with or without a spoonful of marmalade). 01225 448748 finecheese.co.uk or Special smoked salmon A Royal Fillet of smoked salmon from London-cure Forman and Field comes in a single perfect piece (not the usual slices in a packet). To…

Lapland the easy way What with Brexit and its ramifications, it’s perhaps no surprise that it’s become a lot easier to settle for visiting Santa at Lapland UK just down the road from Ascot. It’s not cheap but probably a better deal than the real thing. Attractions include elves, a toy factory, Mother Christmas’s kitchen and an ice rink and, of course, the man in red… three-and-a-half genuinely funpacked hours. Whitmoor Forest, Winkfield Row, Ascot SL5 8BD; 12 Nov-24 Dec; all ages £59-£139pp; portal.laplanduk.co.uk. Stately Santa Father Christmas must have a levelling-up policy, since he will also be receiving visitors in the Far North - in Yorkshire. The interior of the vast stately home Wentworth Woodhouse will be transformed into a winter wonderland in which visitors will magically mingle with…

Nowhere in music is the art of civilised discourse better exemplified than in the string quartets of Joseph Haydn, musical conversation pieces that, like the writings of Jane Austen, are thoughtful, witty, endlessly entertaining and, on occasion, downright disruptive. Delightful compositions in any age, they re doubly so in times blighted by groupthink and the muzzling of the joy of ideas freely shared. Meanwhile, who better to perform these works than the finest of all contemporary string quartets, the Takács? Their most recent disc includes Haydn’s last two quartets, Op.77, consummate achievements both, as well as the touching late fragment that is the D minor Quartet Op.103 (Hyperion CDA68364 £11.50 prestomusic.com). There was a time when the sounds of a French orchestra were as unmistakable as the aromas that assailed…

1 Penguin Classics are 70 years old, but the first book they published was much, much older, by several thousand years. What was it? Literally nothing is known of the book’s author, other than his name. 2 Who did Richard III dismiss as ‘an unknown Welshman’? 3 John Hinckley Jr attempted to assassinate President Reagan in March 1981. Is he out of jail yet? 4 Which former cabinet minister and onetime Conservative leadership candidate, according to Michael Gove, has a sprung dancefloor in his home so that he can practise the lambada? 5 Which London palace is the monarch’s official home? 6 Which English Romantic poet’s mother, sister and lover were all called Fanny? 7 Which fictional detective had a servant called Magersfontein Lugg and was portrayed by Peter Davison…

Shoppers upset at news of the Co-op cat’s death Aberdeen Press Journal Bumps in short road Times Gym at Bourton Leisure Centre closes for refurbishment Cotswold Journal £15 for published contributions NEXT ISSUE The December issue is on sale on 16th November 2022. 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 2023 and other Oldie books are available at: www.theoldie.co.uk/readers-corner/shop Free p&p. OLDIE NEWSLETTER Go to the Oldie website; put your email address in the red SIGN UP box. HOLIDAY WITH THE OLDIE Go to www.theoldie.co.uk/courses-tours…

Grumpy Oldie Man Although my mother had a successful career as a fashion journalist, she missed out on not one but two other vocations. Those with ungodly staying power will find the second outlined at the end, but the first career for which nature ideally equipped her was that of interrogator. She could break the hardest Lubyanka inmate with nothing more in her arsenal of torment than verbal relentlessness. ‘Have you booked it yet?’ she asked a couple of months ago, the ‘it’ being one of those enticements with which the daytime television audience is unceasingly bombarded. Joining funeral insurance, recliner chairs and pulsating devices on which Ian Botham places his feet is a commercial for a viral vaccine. ‘Have you booked it?’ she reiterated after the first enquiry was…

Karl Lagerfeld - or ‘the Kaiser’ - was my first boss in Paris. Though proud of this great feat, I won first prize as his lousiest assistant at the Chanel Studio. It was 1989, the height of the supermodel and the French luxury brand. Chanel’s tweed suits, little black dresses and handbags were whizzing out of their boutiques. But, being Karl, he thought it was tremendously funny that I was a dilettante. ‘You spent your life on the telephone,’ the German designer later teased me. Hard to believe, but while he was adding pearls, satin camellias and other accessories to the lithe limbs of supermodels such as Linda Evangelista, Claudia Schiffer and Naomi Campbell, I was busy gassing to my dark-haired Notting Hill Gate-based girlfriends, nicknamed ‘the moustaches’ by The…

On 21st October, a statue of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) will be unveiled, 250 years to the day since his birth in 1772. It will stand in the local church in his small, thriving home town: Ottery St Mary, tucked away in a pocket of countryside in deepest south-east Devon. The town was his birthplace. It speaks volumes that the church and community are honouring the author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan with such a tribute. The statue, sculpted in bronze by Nicholas Dimbleby - the youngest of the three brothers - will be unveiled at 11.30am, the exact time of the poet’s birth 250 years ago. Pictured below is his clay model of Coleridge’s head. It will stand, life-size, on the edge of St…

‘To betray you must first belong. I never belonged.’ So said Kim Philby in defence of having secretly thrown in his lot with the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Certainly his upbringing in India and his cussed father’s disaffection with Britain’s ruling elite made him something of an outsider among Britain’s entitled, but it’s the feeblest of defences. It was this sort of feebleness that enraged John le Carré, who has far more entitlement to an ‘I didn’t belong’ defence and who, in a crowded field, loathed Philby probably more than anyone did. His father, Ronnie Cornwell, was a conman and violent, philandering, time-serving rogue, whose wife, Olive, left the family home when David (his real name) was just five. ‘I don’t remember feeling any affection in childhood except for…

I recently caught sight of AN Wilson in the London Library. Wilson had kindly helped me with some research into the novelist Elizabeth Jenkins - so I introduced myself. Alas, this was during the heatwave: I was dressed as if I was on a coach tour. Wilson, by contrast, resplendent in a double-breasted suit, purple flowery tie and buckled patent leather shoes, could have rivalled a magnificent bird of paradise. Gentleman that he is, Wilson made no sign of noticing this contrast and slipped politely off. There was a time when this would have given me some pain. Wilson (whose memoirs have just been published and who writes about TS Eliot on page 40 of this issue) was once considered to be a Young Fogey. The type was originally described…

Town Mouse Country living is exercise in itself. Chopping and carting logs, scything meadows, feeding pigs, locking up - and sometimes killing - poultry, weeding the vegetables, kneading the dough for the bread, pruning, planting, digging and all the various other elements of husbandry require a good deal of physical effort. So it should have come as no surprise that, a couple of years after returning to the sedentary city, I noticed I was turning into a plump mouse. I was taking no exercise. I sat in offices, sat on underground trains, and sat on the sofa in the evening. Yes, city life was making me fat. I am deeply gym-averse - so pumping iron in one of those hellholes of narcissists was not an option. The fifth circle of…

SISTER TERESA Seven years ago, when I was first asked to write for The Oldie, I firmly resolved not to complain too much, and I hope I have stuck to this. There are more than enough moans and groans around without my adding to the load, and there is the Rant column in this magazine for those who wish to let off steam. There are, however, some things that need preaching against. As enclosed Carmelites, we see very few videos, and this is from choice. We are therefore very careful about what we select. On the basis of good reviews and a personal recommendation, we watched the award-winning, multi-generational Disney film Encanto, featuring a magical and matriarchal Colombian family. To be fair, some of the computer-animated special effects were highly…

The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome By Harry Sidebottom Oneworld £20 Dinner at the palace of Heliogabalus, Emperor of Rome from 218 to 222 AD, was a casual affair. As guests reclined on their couches, slaves brought in the first of the 22 courses, announcing the evening’s theme. The emperor was partial to colourcoordinating his food. Would tonight’s be a blue supper? A green supper? Or, perhaps, a false supper? Heliogabalus had been known to serve his guests ivory and wax disguised as comestibles while he feasted on the real thing. Not all his guests made it out alive. If a man did not choke on one of the pearls mixed in with his rice, or suffer a heart attack from the sex on offer between every…

David Stirling: The Phoney Major: The Life, Times and Truth about the Founder of the SAS By Gavin Mortimer Constable £25 In Perthshire there’s a statue of David Stirling, commemorated as founder of the SAS. According to this deeply researched book, they’ve got the wrong man. The Phantom Major, an account of Stirling’s wartime achievements, was published in 1958. It described how, following commando training, he formed the SAS as a guerrilla force for raiding behind enemy lines in North Africa, using the LRDG (Long Range Desert Group) as a taxi service. Hundreds of enemy planes and vehicles were destroyed, many enemy killed, and supply lines disrupted. I found the book in the school library and was enthralled. It turns out that The Phantom Major was as much fiction as…

WEST END GRILLS The greasy spoon has all but disappeared from the West End and the City. There used to be caffs on most streets, banging out bacon sarnies from 6am to 3pm. The first sandwich bar, Sandy’s, opened in Oxendon Street in 1933. There were always deep queues primed to order from a variety of bowls of gloopy coronation chicken, chicken with bacon and avocado and tuna with sweetcorn. And, for some reason, piles of breaded veal escalope. The servers were mainly Italian, speaking with heavy Neapolitan Cockney accents. ‘Aig mynice? On white or brown? Do you want butter/salt with that, sir? Bit of lettuce?! Bit healthy today, aren’t we?’ Quite a few also had tables, from where you could order a full English ‘at any time of day’,…

WINTRY WORLD CUP I was granted the most unexpected privilege recently. I was invited to speak at the Rankin Club, a monthly gathering of sports enthusiasts in the Herefordshire market town of Leominster. This is as exclusive an operation as you can imagine. Since it was set up in 1980 by local enthusiast John Beaman, every month it has hosted talks from sporting greats. Five members of the 1966 World Cup winning team, seven England cricket captains, six British Lions skippers … the guest list is extraordinary. ‘Michael Holding was here to talk to us recently,’ I was told by the evening’s host, the Daily Mail’s Brian Viner. ‘And Mike Atherton. We’re hoping to get Tyson Fury along soon.’ But on this occasion it was me, invited with my co-author,…

Taking a Walk A still, sunny day in autumn is a sweet pill to swallow. A warm, lowering sun and a mellow, slightly melancholic silence, broken only by the ‘chip’ of a passing woodpecker and the drone of a distant light plane. Time is shortening, the year is turning and the oaks are dripping with pleasingly plump acorns. This was the scene as I strolled out from Barton-under-Needwood in Staffordshire a few weeks ago. Beyond the Co-op car park was green pasture and low wooded hills rolling up from the Trent valley; the ordinary beauty and tranquillity of middle England that endure despite pylons and fulfilment centres. The only blot on autumnal bliss was that my guide was not my preferred paper map but a free app, Go Jauntly. It…

You’ve left your abode to buy a plant at a local garden centre rather late in the afternoon. There are two nearby centres -we’li call them Acacia and Bacopa. If you travel to Bacopa first (further away, less efficient centre) and it doesn’t have your desired plant, you won’t have time to goto Acacia. However, if you travel first to Acacia (nearer and quicker service), you’ll still have time to try Bacopa if Acacia doesn’t have your desired plant. It’s a no-brainer - head straight to Acacia, with Bacopa in reserve. On this month’s deal, West leads out the ace-king of hearts and you ruff - carefully with the six of clubs, retaining the three to reach dummy twice in clubs. Plan the play. Dealer South North-South Vulnerable The bidding…

Whether you grow it, or buy a plant, or use the dried stuff, sage is surely the first herb that one associates with Christmas. Sage and onion stuffing, for roast turkey, goose or pork, has a long history: the two ingredients were apparently first put together in a cookery book published in the 17th century. What is most interesting is that the creator of this stuffing was a distinguished astrologer, founder of the Royal Society, naval adventurer and diplomat. A Catholic for most of his life, Sir Kenelm Digby was also quite a philanderer and enjoyed the favours of two queens - Marie de' Medici and her daughter Henrietta Maria who married Charles I. When he had the time, this polymath designed the modern wine bottle and compiled recipes which…

As a host, you need to be a little wary of seasonal cocktails. I once tasked several friends with peeling brown shrimps on Christmas morning, offering them the inducement of Champagne cocktails: sugar cubes sprinkled with Angostura, dropped into glasses, drenched in brandy and topped up with fizz. Meanwhile, I set about making stuffing, peeling spuds, wrapping sausages in bacon, dissuading the cat from becoming too closely acquainted with the turkey, and all the other pre-prandial chores that festivity demands. An hour or so later, I went to retrieve the cognac from the shrimp-peelers and realised they were all pie-eyed, and I had barely enough brandy left to flame the pudding. Should I feel like potting shrimps nowadays, I buy them ready-peeled. Less lethal, and very Christmassy, is a bottle…