EXTRA 32-PAGE REVIEW OF BOOKS 5 “Oldie December 2019 | £4.75 | wwwtheoldie.co.uk | Issue 381 Happy 60th Birthday, Asterix! Giles Coren on his hero, the plucky little Gaul A telly room of our own - Giles Wood and Mary Killen Last days of Thatcher - Maggie's fall by Ferdinand Mountee Chris Beetles Gallery ie THE ILLUSTRATORS ae THE BRITISH ART OF ILLUSTRATION 1865-2019 16 November 2019 — 4 January 2020 The biggest annual event worldwide for cartoon and illustration collectors, displaying 400 pictures over two centuries. The ful illustrated exhibition catalogue contains new biographies and notes, and presents a selec: tion of illustrations from 1865 to the present day. The catalogue is aalable from the gallery for £15 (p&p free to Oldie readers). All works are for sale and can be viewed on our website www.chrisbeetles.com Charles Frederick Tanne, OBE RA (1901-1979) Rend Bl (1872-1942) ward Ardzzone, CBE RA (1900-1979) sdk 8810 Ryder Street London SWIY 6QB + 0207839 7551 + galeryechibeeescom + Monday Saturday + 10am -$30pmGIVE The Oldie foraslittle as £20 for12issues - Witty, pretty, tricky Aunt Nancy page 15, eats 18 Yes! We had no bananas Hunter Davies 18 Theaccidental MP—Nancy | 26'The WayWe Live Now Astor by Philip Astor Dafydd Jones 80 Town Mouse Tom Hodgkinson ‘81 Country Mouse Giles Wood £89 1 Once Met... Stanley Spencer David Reynolds 89 Memory Lane 40 Postcards from the Edge ‘Mary Kenny 42 School Days Sophia Waugh 42 Home Front Alice Pitman 443 Wilfred DeAth 444 Profitable Wonders James Le Fam 48 God Sister Teresa ‘46 Memorial Service: Professor Norman Stone Harry Mount 7 he Doctor's Surgery ‘Theodore Dalrymple 48 Readers’ Letters 63 Media Matters Stephen Glover 67 History David Horspool {69 Words and stuf Joknny Grimond {69 Rant: Loo queues 7 Agay PC when being gay wasn't PC Stephen Bourne 20 Happy LXth birthday, Asterix! Giles Coren 22 Atelly room of our own Giles Wood and Mary Killen 24 Putting poverty on the map ~ anew tition of Charles Booths ‘maps of Vieorian London 28 The Pope's Latin teacher — Katie Walker takes lessons from Father Reginald Foster 32 Happy 8oth, dearest Bron Patrick Marnham 85 King of gumesmen Darniant ‘Thompson hails Stephen Potter, who died 50 years ago Regulars 5 The Old Uns Notes 7 Bliss on Toast Prue Leith 9 Gyles Brandreth’s Diary Grumpy Oldie Man ‘Matthew Norman 12 Olden Lite: Who were cardigan-huggers? Bleanor Allen 99 Crossword 12 Modem Life: What are 100 Bridge Andrew Robson subscription boxes? 100 Competition Tessa Castro Reverend Steve Morris 10 Ack Virginia Ironside oes Publchor aes Fea Giles and Mary'sideal room page 22 Books ‘51 Margaret Thatcher: The Authorized Biography, Volume Three, by Charles Moore Ferdinand Mount 53 Will, by WillSelf Frances Wilson ‘55 The Man in the Red Coat, by Julian Barnes Hamish Robinson 957 Islamic Empires: Fiteen Cities That Define a Civilization, by Justin Marozai Robert Fox: 57 Surfacing, by Kathleen Jamie Naku Krishna 61 Agent Running in the Field, by ohn le Carré Miranda Carter ‘Travel 90 Troy Story - Hannah Betts visits the birthplace of classical myth and legend (92 Overlooked Britain ~a heavenly pumping station Lucinda Larabton (94 Sweet and sour days in Perugia ~ romance, pique and revenge Elinor Goodman 96 Taking a Walk Patrick Barkham 97 On the Road: Rick Stein Louise Flind trite tthe Ole imtoo ih ons beoz0 807092 Who teaches the Pope Latin? page 28 Arts 70 Film Harry Mount 71 Theatre Nicholas Lezard 71 Radio Valerie Grove 72 ‘Television Roger Lewis 78 Music Richard Osborne 78 Golden oldies Rachel Johnson 77 Exhibitions Huon Mallaliew Pursuits 79 Gardening David Wheeler 79 Kitches ‘Simon Courtauld 80 Cookery Elisabeth Lavard 80 Restaurants James Pembroke 81 Drink Bill Knott 82 Sport Jim White 82 Motoring Alan Judd {84 Digital Life Matthew Webster, 84 Money Matters Margaret Dibben £87 Bird of the Month: ‘Treecreeper John McEwen 88 Getting Dressed Brigid Keenan Reader Offers Garden Literary Lunches p65 Reader course: British architectural history with Harry Mount p35 Reader trip to Madeira with Kirsty Fergusson 39 ark onset at The Oldie December 2019 8EXPERIENCE MORE... SIC R RRC Ree en mutt -maiha ley Col PROMS PUL erty donation or leaving a gift to Pa Neo eo Ota | Sra elim ett «ICONIC LOCATIONS We've selected and approved 50 ofthe best independently owned luxuty hotels and spas around Britain for you to enjoy. rectory or visit prideotbritainhotels.com Tet) THE ART OF GREAT HOSPITALITY Pere eee ea eee Are you -.::::: Peed ea eri! Cy Oe Parteners srr Epes as cee! COMFORTABLY 7 PRU L Tec ba ect (rea e Cais portable back support, you can PEs Poe air Tas eerie pain wherever you sit. Peaicrea nad een as Cv eae eT eed Ce Gd cette Cv ets ge al Cee Pry ied tape CY eed Request your free Backfriend E: to@medesign.co.uk T: 01704542373The Old Uns Notes Berkoff as Harvey Weinstein ‘The monstrous behaviour of Harvey Weinstein has produced a brilliant new book by Ronan Farrow (son of Woody Alen and Mia Farrow), who first broke the story inthe New Yorker. And now there'safilm, Harvey, starting Steven Berkoff, kingofthe Hollywood baddies, as Weinstein, Berkoff based the film (available on DVD) on his play ofthe same name. At82, Berkoffis an oldie firing on all eylinders. He tells the Old Un, ‘'m fascinated by evil villains and monsters. Weinstein isa lassie Hollywood monster, an ugly, demonic beast. He suffered from a misguided belief in his charisma and believed that ‘women would play along with that. At the same time, he had sense of his ugliness: “Women don't really like me. ‘They're just playing up tome toget apartina film. When the allegations of rape and abuse by Weinstein first came out, Berkoff started researching and ‘writing the play Berkoff wanted to examine Weinstein’s justification for Barry and Thelma were his abusive behaviour. both born in Leeds on the He did meet Weinstein | same day, ten years apart. once. ‘He was fascinating and | Actress Thelma is celebrating fairly transparent. Hewas | her 95th birthday next year by infamous for being, asadistic | performing at the King’s Head bully. You didn’t want to get in Islington. Spring-chicken onthe wrong side ofhim. And | Barry, a mere 84, then wowed now his insatiable hunger for power and fame an sextal compulsion stripped him of everything.” Comedy legend Barry Cryerand star actress ‘Thelma Ruby were photographed at Oscar Wilde's 165th birthday party, held at Grosvenor House by Gyles Brandreth iis , we F "I | Leeds united! Barry & Thelma Among this month’s contributors. Y ¢ « € 9 Patrick Mamham (pga) is author of The Private Eye Story. He worked on Private Eye with Auberon Waugh from 1970 to 1980. In this issue, he remembers Waugh on. ‘what would have been his 8oth birthday. Elinor Goodman (p94) was political editor of Channel 4 News from 1988 to 22005. Previously she was a the FT. She ‘was one of the panel members of the Leveson inquiry into phone-hacking. Giles Coren (p20) is a columnist and the restaurant critic for the Times. His books inelude the novel Winkler and Anger ‘Management for Beginners: A Self-Help Course in 70 Lessons. Hannah Betts (p90) writes mostly for the Times and the Telegraph. Her subjects include feminism, social and sexual mores, royalty and history. Her favourite periods are the 1180s BC and the 1590s. the audience at the East India Club in conversation with Oldie editor Harry Mount, only afew days after Oscar's birthday. Susanna Johnstor sister of ourmuch- missed late editor, Alexander Chancellor, is publishing her ‘memoir, Rescuing My Father (Zuleika), in December. ‘Alexander would have turned 80 on 4th January next year. Susanna recalls his, carly daysin the Chancellor home in Hertfordshire. ‘The house was close enough to London that it was threatened by the Blitz, and baby Alexander took to sleeping in a giant gas mask. “Many of our windows were fragmented,’ writes Susanna, “but never the one that was sited immediately above Alexander as he sleptin his, gas mask.’ Susanna Johnston also recalls the time the 16-year-old Crown Prince Akihito of Japan (later the Emperor, who abdicated earlier this year) came to stay with the Chancellors in 1949. The Crown Prince proceeded to thrash Susanna at ping-pong. ‘Nearly 50 years later, in 1998, during Akihito’s controversial state visit to the UK, Alexander revived this humiliating event in print ‘My sister is not completely ready to normalise relations with Japan,’ he wrote, ‘since she is still hoping for an &2° The Oldie December 2019 5Important stories you may have missed Knitting stolenincar break-in ‘New Milton Advertiser Man broke wind during strip search Dundee Courier Brazilian cheese bread sells in China China Daily £15 for published contributions NEXTISSUE January issueisonsaleon 4thDecember 2019, FREESAMPLECOPY fyouhavea friend who wouldlike afree sample of The Oldie, tellthem to call 08008565867. GETTHEOLDIE APP Read extraletters and ‘Memory Lanes. Goto App Store or Google Play Store; search for Oldie Magazine. OLDIEBOOKS The Best of The Oldie Cartoons 1992-2018, The 2019 Annualandother Oldie books are available atwwwitheoldie.co.uk/ readers-comer/shop. Freepap. OLDIE NEWSLETTER: Goto the Oldie website; put your email addressin thered SIGNUP box. 6 The Oldie December 2019 apology from the Emperor for having eruelly defeated her at ping-pong, some 50 years ago.” Last year we ran a piece ‘on Nigel Molesworth and his onlie begetter, Geoffrey Willans (1911-1958). Now the Old Unis delighted to learn that thanks to the efforts of Willans's nephew, Robin Gilbert, a commemorative plaque is to be unveiled at 19 Alexander Road, Gloucester, where Willans grew up. A previous initiative to havea similar plaque installed on the building that used to be Glyngarth, Willans’s prep school, was rejected by Cheltenham Ladies’ College, the present owners, on the grounds that ‘it might seta precedent. Chia! Chizt ‘The Old Un usually finds personalised numberplates impossibly ‘vulgar but, in this ease, he's prepared to makean exception. In October, this ‘OLD numberplate went up for sale at Brightwells, the auctioneer in Leominster. Amazingly, no cone bought it at an estimated sale price of £90,000 to £100,000. The Old Un would consider buying it for his own ‘wreck ofa jalopy — but is concerned by the mismateh of having a numberplate that's worth a thousand times as much as his ear. ‘This issue of The Oldie isa Latin special, with articles on Asterix by Giles Coren and the Pope's Latinist, Father Reginald Foster, by Katie Walker. Latin isn’t thriving everywhere, sadly. Melancholy news reaches the Old Un that Finnish public radio has, on cost grounds, decided to end its weekly news broadcast in Latin. The show was getting an average audience of only 50,000. That Teaves the Vatican with a five-minute Latin news bulletin and a half-hour Latin conversation programme, plus Radio Bremen's monthly Latin news broadcast. ‘As Cicero was fond of saying, ‘O tempora, o mores!” Daisy Ashford’ classi, ‘The Young Visiters, hhas found its perfect illustrator in the great artist Posy Simmonds. ‘Simmonds eaptures perfectly the late-Victorian, comic views of Ashford, who was only nine when she wrote Daisy ina Posy the book in 1890. The book wasn’t published until a century ago this year, in 1919. Ashford herself was the ultimate one-hit wonder and child star combined, She died, aged 90, in Norwich in 1970, having run a flower-growing business in Norwich and the King’s Arms Hotel in Reepham with her husband, James Devlin ‘The new edition of The Young Visiters, introduced by Lucy Mangan, published by Chatto & Windus, is out on ‘th November. ‘Wendy Cope, a favourite poet among oldies, was aan ideal judge for this year’s annual john Betjeman Poetry Prize for a poem written by a child under 13 Cope spent 15 years as a primary-school teacher before publishing her 1986 collection, Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis — which ‘Amis himself pronounced “bloody good’ She and her co-judge, her poet husband Lachlan Mackinnon, decided without a ‘word of argument that the ‘exceptionally moving’ poem by 13-year-old Fin Perry, ‘written when his mother was ill in hospital, should win, (Fin’s parents area hhusband-and-wife team who ‘write teenage vampire romances under the nom de plume of Mia James.) The ‘winning poem is printed in the Oldie Review of Books, side this issue. At St Pancras Station, where the prize is presented annually in front of Martin Jennings’ lovable and lifelike Betjeman statue, the children’s reading aloud of their own verses was interrupted as usual byblaring Tannoy announcements of Eurostar arrivals plus those ‘infuriating warnings: See it. Sayit. Sorted.’ Yet the audience managed tolisten raptly to the children’s words. Especially to poem called Renaissance Rondeau, about a choir singing Verdi in a church with, perfect acoustic —‘Like Greek theatres where sound was sharp as spears.’ This was written by tiny Herbie Wares, who won the new award for the best poem by a 10-year- ld, given in memory of, Betjeman’s late mistress Lady Elizabeth Cavendish, who lied last year, aged 92. ‘Wendy Cope was intrigued by Herbie, who attends the independent Dwight School in north London, and asked how he knew about such things. It ‘turned out he had researched the subject after playing the From 1965, itsmashed up every preconception about women's mags, with its pioneering photography, bold typefaces and edgy features. ‘Abest-of-Nova anthology, edited by its art director David Hillman (who in 1988 went onto redesign the Guardian), was launched recently. Several Nova contributors were present at the launch, including our fashion columnist Brigid Keenan (Nove’s assistant editor), Dame Ann Leslie, Irma Kurtz, and Roger Law of Spitting Image (who produced puppets for Nova’ satirical illustrations). Hillman told the story of how Nova was dealt a fatal blow. In 1972, the sassy ‘American magazine Cosmopolitan was due to launch in Britain with its theme of how-to-snare- ‘your-man (by sex), which was violin ina church with what his teacher said was aT30 reverberation (T30 isa ‘measurement of the ‘decay time’ of a sound). “Avery impressive little boy, said Wendy. And, as her husband former English master at Winchester ~ added, We should celebrate the teachers who create young, writers and young readers. ‘They inspire the next generation, often in lifficult circumstances.’ Remember Nova magazine? WELCOME TO THE OLDIE DIRECTORY insultingly retrograde compared with Nova’s staunchly feminist stance. ‘What Nova needed that ‘month was a killer scoop. They decided to use newfangled computer-dating, and find a wife for the bachelor prime ‘minister, Edward Heath, then aged (ike Boris Johnson now) 55. Ads were placed, anonymously, fr a nice middle-aged lady to take on the Bach-playing master of Morning Cloud. ‘The chosen responder was, Yonne Manson, aged 52,a Tory-voting divoreee who was ES We vst tis up forreadrtofnd Directory resicsrdsovecs onournebste Shores evn fon vate Gare to Homes and Gardens. Goto. thedirectory.theoldie.co.uk PRUE LEITH Bliss on Toast Quick, easy, comforting and delicious suppers Fried white bloomer topped with sautéed white beans (haricots), chorizoandtomato appalled at the idea of being ‘matched with Ted: ‘Arrogant ‘no human understanding and he's rude.” But she posed for photographs, and Nova created mock-up images: on the cover, a spoof tabloid front page (‘TED WEDS: “No ‘more boats,” says bride’) Inside was her vision of their raspberry-pink bedroom, and her formula for a Downing ‘Street dinner party including Enoch Powell, Jackie Onassis, Lia Taylor and Bernadette Devlin (plus new baby) around the table. "The ‘bride’ was happy to do interviews, and high sales were confidently expected. ‘The mag went to press in ‘Milan as usual. Then eame the blow: a call from ‘Mrs ‘Manson to confess that she was, infact, still married; and as it happened, one of her grown-up children was on the rrun, Sought by Interpol for importing quantities of cannabis, The whole issue had tobe binned, So Cosmo launched without any rivalry from Nova, which began to hit the skids soon after — limping on, reduced in size, to its final demise in 1975. Irma Kurtz, one of whose last columns declared that ‘Sex is vastly overrated’, went ‘on to become Cosmo's agony aunt for the next 40 years. ‘The Old Un doesn't like mentioning Christmas until Christmas Eve, when he starts contemplating which road atlas to buy from the local petrol station as a present for Mrs Old Un. He makes an exception for his favourite charity, Horatio's Garden, which boosts spinal-injury patients by ‘making lovely gardens in NHS spinal-injury centres. ‘The Horatio's Garden carol concert this year isin St ‘Marylebone Parish Church, London, on 2nd December at 6.gopm. The St Marylebone parish is home to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, the sister establishment tothe site at Stanmore, where the fifth Horatio’s Garden is due to open next year. ‘The carol concert features lovely music and readings. Go to info@horatiosgarden.org, uk to get tickets orto give donation. © ‘Your job application will need to.be supported by 20Vs" The Oldie December 20197