KING CHARLES III CORONATION SPECIAL

M AY 202 3

KING
CHARLES III
CORONATION
CELEBRATING
THE START OF A
NEW REIGN

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Contents
MAY 2023

Features
14 IT’S A MANN’S WORLD
Olly Mann finds a wholesome
use for Facebook, and stumbles
on a familiar face online

ENTERTAINMENT
18 INTERVIEW: p62
EMELI SANDÉ
The singer-songwriter talks
jazz, meeting the Obamas and INSPIRE
finding peace in her thirties 62 GOD SAVE THE KING
We reflect on King Charles III's life
26 “I REMEMBER”: spent preparing for the throne
JENNY ECLAIR
The award-winning comedian 78 CORONATION HISTORY
looks back on a career full of Delve into the fascinating details
filthy jokes, straight-talking behind the centuries-old tradition
women and reality TV gags
86 COLD WATER RESCUE
HEALTH The incredible story of a waiter who
34 CAN HEARING LOSS saved three women from drowning
BE REVERSED?
Hearing loss in the future could 90 MALE FRIENDSHIPS
be treated medically, without Men badly need more friends—could
the use of hearing aids a monthly poker night be the tonic?

42 YOUR LOCAL SCIENCE TR AVEL

LAB NEEDS YOU 102 MAGNIFICENT MARSEILLE
Why you should consider We explore the multicultural
volunteering for a clinical trial heritage of France's oldest city

MAY 2023 • 1
cover photograph by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images
Medical Research Foundation, 99 Charterhouse Street, London, EC1M 6HR. OR visit
0422RD
0123RD
Contents
MAY 2023

In every issue
5 Editor's Letter
6 Over to You
10 See the World Differently

HEALTH
48 Advice: Susannah Hickling
52 Column: Dr Max Pemberton
56 Memory: Jonathan Hancock

DATING & RELATIONSHIPS p114

58 Column: Monica Karpinski

INSPIRE FOOD & DRINK

70 My Britain: Ballater 126 Bake Off stars share their
76 If I Ruled the World: Coronation recipes
Helen Lederer
ENTERTAINMENT
TRAVEL & ADVENTURE 132 May's Cultural Highlights
110 My Great Escape
112 Hidden Gems: Toronto BOOKS
136 May Fiction: James Walton’s
MONEY Recommended Reads
114 Column: Andy Webb 141 Books That Changed
My Life: Vaseem Khan
PETS
120 Keep your pet safe during the TECHNOLOGY
Coronation celebrations 142 Column: James O’Malley

HOME & GARDEN FUN & GAMES

122 How to garden sustainably 146 You Couldn’t Make It Up
149 Word Power
152 Brain Teasers
p120 156 Laugh!
159 Beat the Cartoonist
160 Good News

MAY 2023 • 3
 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Eva Mackevic PRINT ADVERTISING Keir McCumiskey
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EDITOR’S LETTER

Long Live
King
The

n May 6, 2023, we will all become a small part of history as

we witness the coronation of a new monarch—an ancient
tradition that has remained essentially the same for over a
thousand years. With King Charles III’s imminent accession
to the throne, we invite you to join us in celebrating this
once-in-a-lifetime occasion.
Harry Verity takes a look at the fascinating history behind coronation
ceremonies on p78—the pageantry, the meticulous planning, and the
often bizarre traditions involved.
On p62, Jennifer McShane delves deep into the biography of HRH—
from his difficult childhood to his public work, via life as the longest-
serving heir apparent in British history.
Then, we pay a visit to Ballater on p70—a quaint village next to
Balmoral where the locals are used to seeing the royals in their shops and
cafes. On p135, we take a look at the King’s favourite tunes (can you guess
what gives him “an irresistible urge to get up and dance”?),
and you’ll find some very special coronation-themed
recipes from Bake Off stars on p126.
Happy Coronation Bank Holiday!

E va eva mackevic
Editor-in-Chief

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MAY 2023 • 5
 Over To You
LETTERS ON THE March ISSUE
We pay £50 for Letter of the Month and £30 for all others

LETTER OF THE MONTH

TIREDNESS TAKES ITS TOLL by what I presumed

Thank you for the article on
tiredness, “Tired Of Feeling Tired?”
by Susannah Hickling. In these
hard times it is sensible to be
aware of our energy levels.
I worked as a pharmacist and
am a patient with a diagnosis of
schizophrenia since 1986 and so
have seen so many people in need
of rest and felt in myself weariness
and exhaustion. One year I was
so tired that the GP referred me
for blood tests in case there was
something physically wrong.
Thankfully, the tests were OK—it
was my mind that was tired.
Your writer lists nine causes,
but one could add the negative
effects of long-term mental illness
too. I felt really beaten down and
rotten. I was vulnerable to the
sound of coughing and traffic, had
feelings of guilt, and was troubled
to be telepathic voices.
I had unreciprocated letters
with friends and a poor love life,
and that increased the dejection—
my broken heart was a cause of
tiredness. Just struggling through
an ordinary day was a challenge.
Tell your readers that there is
something they can do. There
is engagement with the doctors
and surgeries and sometimes
with psychiatrists—medication
can help. I found meditation and
reading very uplifting. I have
also managed to place essays on
mental health blogging platforms.
Being tired is serious and I
would really encourage people
who are worried to approach their
GP and look after their mental
health. We are in the middle of a
mental health crisis, some people
say, and we need to take action.
ANDREW LOW, Middlesex

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

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and use them in all print and electronic media

6 • MAY 2023
Power of Puppy Love
Olly Man’s “Doggy Diary” certainly
made me laugh. Having never really
been a dog person either—in fact, I
used to roll my eyes at friends who
referred to themselves as their pet’s
“Mummy” and “Daddy”—I also found
myself subject to a family campaign
for a dog. “We will train it and take it
on family walks and it will get us all
outside more”, my family promised me.
Next thing, I came home from work
and found a puppy curled up in my
kitchen! Adorable and mischievous in
equal measure—she melted our hearts
and mangled our shoes (hats and
gloves were favourites too!). And I have
become one of those icky people who
say things like, “Come to Mummy!”, but
then that’s the power of puppy love.
To Olly I say—this is just the start, it
gets better and worse but for the time
being keep your shoes somewhere very
safe! And prepare to be the main dog
walker (no matter what you may have
been told).
JENNIE GARDNER, Bath
Pen Pals
It was interesting to read Dr
Max’s column “Pen To Paper”
about the rather old-fashioned
art of letter writing.
When I was in middle school in
the 1970s, I loved nothing more
than writing to my various pen
pals around the world. In fact,
my best friend Caroline and I
used to compete with each other
as to who had the most pals
around the globe! I agree with
Dr Max that it takes more time,
care and concentration to write
a letter, opposed to the modern
equivalent of texting or emailing.
I have to confess that I rarely
write letters the old-fashioned
way anymore, but as Caroline
moved to Greece several years
ago, we still keep in touch.
More often than not it’s a quick
WhatsApp message or email, but
every now and then I put pen to
paper and send a witty missive
and look forward to an air mail
envelope landing on my doormat
in reply!
MELANIE LODGE, Yorkshire
MAY 2023 • 7
OVER TO YOU
Behind the (Sports) Scenes
I really found your feature “Meet
the 1% Club” to be deeply
thought provoking.
We have all of these
sportspeople and teams who
achieve great things, and we
focus on the people in the
limelight—the athletes
themselves, trainers, coaches
and managers. The people
working equally as hard behind
the scenes supporting them are
forgotten, and I am very glad you
have shone a light on people like
Kate Shilland, a nutritionist who
works with Crystal Palace
Football Club among others, and
Simon Bailey, who is the national
chaplain to UK horse racing
providing support to jockeys.
All these people work hard to
support those at the front, and it
is nice to see them recognised
for it.
LUKE RUSSELL, Yorkshire
8 • MAY 2023
Caregiving Decisions
It was with a heavy heart that I read “The
Accidental Caregiver” because it struck a
chord with me. For better or worse, my
father became my mother’s caregiver after
she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. They
had moved to Spain before that and spent
many years there before they realised my
mother was not well and my father moved
back to the UK to be near family.
My father never once said my mother
should go in a nursing home. He kept her
at her home until two days before she died.
My sisters and I helped do the things my
father found hard, like showering Mum.
I would describe caring for someone
with a serious neurological disease as a bit
like running a marathon. Many people
will say that they will do as much as they
can until they can’t anymore, and that’s
not good for anyone. My sisters and I all
felt my father should have let her go into a
nursing home in the latter stages of her
illness—it took its toll on all of us looking
after her. And if you keep a lot of
information private from each other,
people will have no idea how bad it might
be behind closed doors.
However, I think succeeding as a
spousal caregiver means knowing when to
ask for help, finding time for yourself and
making peace with your partner. If
sometimes my father was slightly
impatient with my mother, we did not
blame him. It was a no-win situation, and
my father was always going to lose the
love of his life.
GINETTE HUGHES, Hertfordshire
 READER’S DIGEST

BEST FRIEND
POETRY
CORNER How to carry on with this sorrow,
How to make plans for tomorrow,
You were my life, my love, and now you’re gone,
No wonder I felt I couldn’t go on.

But, wait a minute, what do I see,

A little furry face looking up at me,
A wagging tail and four little paws,
Saying let’s go and have fun in the great outdoors.

I rescued you from the streets and unhappiness,

You rescued me from despair and loneliness,
Together we can see sunshine through the fog,
There is no better friend than a rescue dog.
PAULINE CLARKSON, West Midlands

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Email us at
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every published piece
Tawny Owl
The early star welcomes the evening
As the last rays of day paint the sky.
I hear the tall grasses converse with the breeze,
While a tawny owl listens, nearby.
The chattering stream spills over the stone
And scatters the small fish and fry.
The mouse with a scurry hides under a leaf,
While a tawny owl watches, close by.
The crescent moon follows the bright star
And are joined by the small clouds on high.
The owl with its claw and pincer-like beak,
Swallows the mouse, with a sigh.
MICHAEL TULLY, London

MAY 2023 • 9
10
photos;: © picture alliance/keystone/valentin flauraud

SEE turn page

THEtheWORLD...
12
 …DIFFERENTLY
In the huge landscape painting World in
Progress II, its creator, who seems to be
supporting an animal folded out of paper,
is easy to miss. Lying on the ground,
Guillaume Legros, who works under the
name Saype and lives in the French-
speaking part of Switzerland, becomes
part of his work. It was to be admired in
September 2021 at the feet of the
headquarters of the UN in New York.
“Ephemeral artworks” is what Saype calls
these paintings, which he sprays onto
grass using biodegradable paint. World in
Progress II, like the first part of the artwork
that the artist created the year before at
the UN‘s Geneva site, was a gift from
Switzerland to the organisation for its
75th anniversary.
 The
Social
Network
Facebook is dead, o you remember when social

D
media felt good? When Friends
Twitter's a bin fire, Reunited connected you back to
but social media your high school sweetheart…
Or when you posted a song to
still has its uses, MySpace, a giddy thrill akin to decorating
your teenage bedroom… Or when Instagram
writes Olly Mann filters miraculously elevated your smudgy
camera roll snaps to a (semi) professional
standard? It was fun!
Then, you got wise to all that. Fake news.
Targeted advertising. Echo chambers. The
outrage economy. You began resenting your
time spent on social media, rather than
enjoying it.
Olly Mann presents When a family WhatsApp group
Four Thought for (supposedly dedicated to your granny’s
BBC Radio 4, and health logistics) became swamped with
the podcasts The stupid memes, you felt trapped. It seemed
Modern Mann, The
Week Unwrapped like a betrayal when that TikToker (who
and The Retrospectors you only followed, during the pandemic,
because they looked cute dancing round
their kitchen) began posting conspiracy

illustration by Daniel Garcia MAY 2023 • 15

IT’S A MANN’S WORLD
theories. You stopped responding to
those Facebook quizzes—no longer
divulging your preferred method
of cutlery organisation, or whether
you can spot colour patterns in a
ballgown—for fear this precious
information could somehow be
used to compound someone’s eating
disorder, or skewer the general
election. This was not fun.
I know this happened to you,
because it happened to me. Social
media became something I needed to
SOCIAL MEDIA—LIKE MANY OF THE PEOPLE
WHO USE IT—HAD BECOME A TOOL
use for work—updating LinkedIn with
my CV, or scanning through Twitter
to stay abreast of the news. But the
act of reclining in my sofa, phone in
hand, actively absorbing my timeline
as a source of entertainment? That life
had gone. Social media—like many of
the people who use it—had become
a tool.
But, occasionally, I’m reminded
how powerful a tool it truly is, in
ways we have come to take for
granted. Far beyond its ability
to influence behaviour, build
"personal brands", or inspire
some unnecessary leap into
the "metaverse", social media
remains unrivalled in its original,
uncommercialised mission—as a
connector of people. A facilitator
of friendship.
16 • MAY 2023
I’m pondering this having just
returned from breakfast with my
friend, Rob. I say "friend", but really
he is someone I met on holiday
when I was 16; aside from one trip to
Glasgow to visit him three years later,
I hadn’t seen him since. In 1997, Rob
and I got along famously: we had
a similar sense of humour, interest
in technology, and high tolerance
for rapid-fire chat. But Rob lived in
Scotland, and I lived in London. We
fell out of touch.
Then, in 2008, when it was all the
rage, we became online "Friends".
But we didn’t properly communicate;
just a few Pokes and emojis. The
unspoken context was, "What’s the
point? We live at opposite ends of
the country." And over time, I frankly
forgot about Rob.
But then, last month, I was (I’m
ashamed to recount) sitting on
the loo, and, having completed
the Sunday supplements, found
myself doing what I virtually never
do anymore: I opened Facebook.
For fun.
The usual stuff came first: a
campaign poster opposing the
sale of my local reservoir. A video
ad, ostensibly from some relatable
middle-aged mum, promising "four
ways to cut your mobile phone bill!".
 READER’S DIGEST

A guy I once worked with, offering
his hot take on The Last Of Us. I
didn’t actually read any of this—I just
scrolled on, with that familiar mix of
mild frustration and otherness.
And then, there it was: a photo
of a little girl whom I did not know,
winning first prize in a school talent
show. A photo, unusually, posted by
Rob—the first interaction he’d had
on Facebook for years—and tagged
with the name of the school his
daughter (for it was she) attends.
Which is not in Scotland. It is five
miles from my house.
Were it not for social media, I
would never have known that Rob
had moved to my neck of the woods.
He is a private person, who now
works from home for an American
corporation—it’s not like his
hometown, or telephone number,
is a matter of public record. Were
it not for social media, I could not
have casually tapped through to
Messenger, expressed delight in the
coincidence, and asked if he wanted
to meet up for a drink (then discover
he’s given up alcohol but OMG he’s
local, so we can go for breakfast
after I drop the kids off at school one
morning, and there is nothing better
than a breakfast social).
Over poached eggs and smashed
avocado, our conversation flowed
just as it had 22 years ago. We agreed
to meet up again, with wives and
kids in tow this time, and both
said how bizarre it was that we’d
spent years living so near to each
other—shopping in the same delis
and charity shops, taking the same
commuter train—and yet had never
bumped into each other. Truth
is, even if we had, I’m not sure I
would have recognised him without
his profile pic as a visual aid: that
teetotalism has been good for
his waistline.
Despite all the (necessary)
reckoning about how social media
disrupts our lives, it was nice to be
reminded that, sometimes, it is worth
pressing Like. Q

Once More With Feeling

The word "encore" may be French for "again", but it actually entered the English
language as a corruption of the Italian word "ancora", which was called out by
audiences as early as the 18th century in the Italian Opera in London

The French, Germans and Italians instead call out "bis" ("twice" in Latin)
SOURCE: GRAMOPHONE.CO.UK

MAY 2023 • 17
18
ENTERTAINMENT

OLIVIA LIFUNGULA
 Emeli Sandé
“I Feel So Grounded
Within Myself”
By Simon Button

Happy and confident, singer-songwriter Emeli

Sandé looks back on her amazing experiences
and talks about the creative period she is in now

S
ince coming out last year, Emeli Sandé has
never felt happier. “It’s all about understanding,
accepting and embracing yourself,” the singer-
songwriter tells me. We’re speaking on the
phone so I can’t see her face, but I imagine she’s
smiling as she adds: “It has unlocked so many doors
both creatively and emotionally within me and I feel so
much more grounded within myself.”
Sandé is engaged to classical pianist Yoana Karemova
and says of the wedding: “We don’t have a date yet but
it’s definitely in talks. We’re very deep in love and it just
makes life glorious.”

MAY 2023 • 19
Emeli Sandé
performs at the
Belladrum Festival
in Inverness,
Scotland in 2011
Now 36, Emeli (who was previously
married to marine biologist Adam
Gouraguine before they split up in
2014) is much more settled in her
thirties than she was in her twenties.
“One thousand per cent,” she says.
“You really settle into yourself as you
grow older and you learn so much
from different experiences. I look
back on my twenties and I couldn’t
have had a better time. I lived my
dream, got to do all of these amazing
performances and make albums.
But now in my thirties I can let
myself marinate. I feel so much more
confident in myself, for sure.”
Released last spring, her fourth
album Let’s Say for Instance reflects
her happier, more grounded state of
20 • MAY 2023
mind. Most of it was recorded during
lockdown. “A big inspiration was
the idea of connecting with people,
because so much of that connection
had been taken away. I wanted to
make the music as positive and
uplifting as I could. I had a studio at
home and could go down and record
things in the middle of the night. I S C OT T C A M P B E L L / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO
felt like I had complete freedom.”
Sandé will be playing tracks from
the album along with signature
songs like “Heaven”, “Next to Me”
and “Clown” when she performs at
Nocturne Live and the Love Supreme
Jazz Festival this summer. She notes:
“The great thing about festivals is
that you can really push the boat
out and try different things. Love
Supreme is a jazz event so the band
 Sandé in concert at
The Fiesta x Fold
Festival 2018
“THE GREAT THING ABOUT FESTIVALS IS THAT YOU
CAN REALLY PUSH THE BOAT OUT”
and I have been speaking about how
we’re going to bring new elements
of jazz and soul to the songs and
reinterpret them.”
S T U A R T W E S T W O O D / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO
Having last year collaborated
with jazz instrumentalists Ezra
Collective, she continues: “I’ve
really enjoyed stepping into the
jazz genre more because that’s the
music I gravitated towards as a kid.
Coming back to it now is exciting
and it’s really making me push
myself out of my comfort zone.
There’s so much freedom in jazz to
riff and scat, which you can’t do in
the more traditional pop field.”
Emeli was born in Sunderland
and raised in Alford, Aberdeenshire
by her Zambian father and English
mother. She was drawn to music at
an early age, saying: “It was all about
expression, having a voice and being
able to be loud. I sometimes found
speaking to people quite difficult as a
kid. I was very shy, so music allowed
me to kind of have an alter ego and
it allowed me to express things I
couldn’t otherwise.
“I feel lucky that both of my
parents had really good taste in
music. Dad introduced me to Anita
Baker and I was drawn to the power
MAY 2023 • 21
Emeli Sande (R)
performs during the
closing ceremony of
the London 2012
Olympic Games
“BEING AT THE WHITE HOUSE WITH THE OBAMAS
AND CAROLE KING WAS UNFORGETTABLE”
and passion of her singing; it was
so much more than just presenting
a product, it was really from the
soul. I loved Elkie Brooks, Celine
Dion, Mariah, Whitney—all of these
massive singers. I was also drawn to
empowered women who wrote their
own music and, when it came to jazz,
I was so impressed by Nina Simone.
I thought, You have to be a writer
and a singer and since age seven
that’s what I wanted to do.”
Sandé began writing songs about
a year later and took up the piano
when she was 11 or 12. “When
you’re a kid you often feel powerless
22 • MAY 2023
and that adults are controlling
your life. Music was this little
magic corner I could go to and
create something. Still to this
day it’s such a great feeling when
a song appears.”
She was educated at Alford
R E U T E R S / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO
Academy secondary school, where
her father was a teacher. That must
have put pressure on her to do well?
“Massively,” she laughs. “There was
no room for misbehaving or grade-
slipping, which, when I look back,
I’m thankful for. Education propelled
my dad’s life forward and gave him
so many opportunities, so he was
adamant that my sister and I didn’t
take it for granted.”
Thus when she was offered a
record deal at age 16, she turned it
down in favour of studying medicine
at Glasgow University. “I wanted a bit
of stability,” she explains. “Moving to
London and trying to chase a dream
was something I ultimately ended up
doing, but I wanted more security. I
loved medicine. Growing up, I really
loved physics, chemistry and biology,
and I loved the academic challenge.
Plus my dad wanted me to graduate
before I went on to do music.”
After graduation she co-wrote
songs with Naughty Boy for other
artists and sang with the Chipmunks
on their number six hit “Diamond
Rings” before signing a deal as a solo
singer and releasing her debut album
Our Version of Events in 2012.
That same year she performed
at the opening ceremony of the
Olympics. “To be trusted in such
a high-pressure situation was an
honour, especially since I’d only
just made my first album. It was
very nerve-wracking, but I managed
to pull myself together. I’ll always
remember how it felt looking at that
microphone, knowing that I was
surrounded by thousands of people
and that millions were watching it
around the world.”
A year later she was at the White
House at a ceremony to honour
Carole King. “That was equally nerve-
wracking. There was Carole, whom
MAY 2023 • 23
INTERVIEW: STEVEN SPIELBERG

Sandé meets King
Charles (then Prince)
at the annual
Commonwealth Day
Reception 2022
I’d really admired as a songwriter
growing up, and the Obamas sat next
to her, and I was two yards away.
Being in the White House, getting
to speak to all these important and
powerful people and sing for them,
was unforgettable. I spoke to Carole
and she was lovely. She was like a
O L I V I A L I F U N G U L A / R E U T E R S / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO
ray of sunshine, so positive, and
she said, ‘Please keep the art of
songwriting alive’. I felt touched that
she appreciated what I was doing.”
And Barack and Michelle Obama?
“My first impression was, Wow, I
didn’t realise how tall they were.
Barack was fantastic. He put me at
ease and he really made me feel like
I’d just come round to his house,
which I kind of had. He was like,
‘Let’s put on a show, guys,’ and he
helped everyone chill out, which is
quite a talent in a situation like that.”
READER’S DIGEST
Having recently worked with
another hero, Nile Rodgers, on the
song “When Someone Loves You”,
Sandé has just finished recording
her fifth album for release later this
year. I wonder if she’s happier in
the studio or on stage? “I’d say it’s
equal, especially after lockdown
and not being able to perform,” she
concludes. “Sometimes you come
off tour, you’re absolutely exhausted
and you think, Right, I’m staying in
the studio for six years now. But after
two years of not being allowed to
perform, I missed it so much. You
miss the energy and connection.” Q
Emeli Sandé is performing at Nocturne
Live (nocturnelive.com) on June 16
and at the Love Supreme Jazz Festival
(lovesupremefestival.com) from June 30
to July 2
MAY 2023 • 25
 I REMEMBER…
Jenny Eclair

Jenny Eclair (63) came to fame as a Perrier

Award winner and is best known for
Grumpy Old Women and her stand-up
shows. She looks back on being an army
brat, working as a life model and her many
forays into reality TV

26
 GL PORTRAI T / A LAMY STOCK PHOTO
ENTERTAINMENT

27
MY FATHER WAS ABSENT A LOT
BECAUSE HE WAS IN THE ARMY.
I was born in Kuala Lumpur, but my
first memory is after we’d moved
back to England, when I was living
with Mum in Blackpool. I was around
three when Dad came home from
Arabia, where he was stationed; he
put me on his shoulders and
pretended that he didn’t know where
we lived. We went up and down the
road, with him going down the
wrong garden paths and asking, "Is it
this house?".
MY MOTHER WAS
EXTRAORDINARY. She was an army
wife who didn’t work, didn’t do
much housework and read a lot of
books. She only just died this year,
actually. My parents had longevity.
They had rubbish hair and my dad
had rubbish legs and genetically I
28 • MAY 2023
haven’t been blessed with very
much, but longevity does run in
the family. Dad was 90 when he
died and Mum was 93. She was
probably the most stoic woman I’ve
ever met. I’m on loads more heart
medication than she ever was. She
contracted polio when she was 22
but I think she took half an aspirin
her entire life.
I WAS AROUND FOUR WHEN I
FOUND I COULD MAKE PEOPLE
LAUGH. I used to gatecrash my
parents’ dinner parties, where I’d
come down wearing my dad’s hats.
I liked attention. We didn’t have a
television and made up a lot of
stories to entertain ourselves.
There was a giddiness inside me
that I could feel and I just liked
laughing, making others laugh and
pulling faces.
 (Left) Eclair as
a young girl;
Queen Mary's
School; (Right)
Eclair's dad
I WENT TO SEVERAL DIFFERENT
SCHOOLS including a very
progressive primary school in Berlin,
which set me up for a fall because
it was all about using your
imagination, interactive play, no
sums and really good food at
lunchtime with napkins. It was really
civilised and I thought every school
was going to be like that.
AFTER BERLIN, DAD WAS
STATIONED IN BARNARD CASTLE,
in the North East of England, and I
went to a notoriously rough school
where they were still beating
children for not eating potatoes
with maggots in them. The whole
school used to line up to see
someone get plimsoled, you were
issued with one thick pencil and
had to ask for toilet paper. But
that was probably good for me
because I was becoming a little
too precious.
AS A TEENAGER I WAS AT A DISCO
IN BLACKPOOL pretending to be
French when someone asked me my
name. I was born Jenny Hargreaves
but I said "Jenny Eclair". A few years
later I used it when I was in the punk
band called Cathy La Crème and the
Rum Babas and the name just stuck.
By the way, I hate rum babas. They’re
disgusting. I can’t stand alcohol-
based puddings. I’m a big fan of
alcohol but not in desserts.
I STUDIED DRAMA AT
MANCHESTER POLYTECHNIC and
the school was meant to be a good
one, but it was terrible. I got a free
place and a grant so I couldn’t ask
for my money back. My niece is
studying at LAMDA now and they
MAY 2023 • 29

work them all day, every day. I got
nothing like that. It was a sloppy,
undisciplined, half-baked course.
Mind you, I was a bit of a drop-out,
had an eating disorder [anorexia]
and I was terribly immature. I was so
excited to have left home and to have
this freedom that I didn’t really
appreciate it.
I WORKED AS A LIFE MODEL FOR
A WHILE and I have absolutely no
shame about it. I could take my
clothes off in front of a class and I
wouldn’t be fazed. I have absolutely
no prudishness. I despise it and
it annoys me in any form. When
it comes to art, the nude has been
around forever, hasn’t it? I trained
as an actress but I wasn’t any
good, so after the polytechnic I
was more drawn towards cabaret
30 • MAY 2023
Eclair with her
young family
performance—which was my way of
doing something that wasn’t acting
but was still on stage. It became
apparent to me quite quickly that
doing my own stuff and making my
own decisions was the way forward.
I WAS A RUBBISH MOTHER AT
FIRST. Phoebe was born in 1990 and
I wasn’t much good until she learned
to talk, then we could barter and
emotionally bribe each other with
stuff. Seeing her now with her son, I
realise I skipped out on it as soon as I
could. I got a childminder when she
was about five months old and I
abdicated all responsibilities as soon
as possible. But I’m glad to say that
we are very close now.
WINNING THE PERRIER AWARD IN
1995 WAS AN HONOUR because I
 The
Grumpy
Old
Women
gang
was the first solo female performer to
do so. But I think it was one of those
occasions where I was everybody’s
second favourite and they couldn’t
agree on a favourite-favourite, so I
snuck in there. No one really knew
what to do with me because the
show at that time was so filthy that it
couldn’t be aired on television. There
was this kind of lull where it was like
"She’s won but now what?". But I just
stuck around and chipped away.
GRUMPY OLD WOMEN CAME
ALONG IN 2004 through the
producer Judith Holder, a dear friend
who I now do the Older and Wider
podcast with. Grumpy Old Men came
first but
, Grumpy Old Women was
much better because Judith filmed a
lot of reality stuff in her own home
with her husband and kids rather
than just having talking heads. I was
skint at the time and it was like, "It’s
£400 so why not?". It was a sea
change in my career because I got
recognised loads more in
supermarkets. I’ve no idea whose idea
it was to do a live show but we did
four in the end and it was great fun.
ONE OF MY WORST ONSTAGE
EXPERIENCES WAS WHEN I HAD
FOOD POISONING while
performing at the Theatre Royal in
Newcastle. I threw up two or three
times during the show. I managed to
get to the wings but couldn’t get my
mic off in time, so the audience could
hear me retching. The other two "old
women" had to prolong the sketches.
I’M STILL FRIENDS WITH DOM
JOLY, whom I met on I’m a
MAY 2023 • 31
 Eclair's family all
grown up

Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! in Loose Women is not usually big

2010, and I was happy to come third.
But the weather was awful. Everybody
thinks November in Australia is going
to be really hot but it was raining and
muddy, and at night it was so cold. I
lost loads of weight, so at least it was
good for that.
, He was there teaching us how to
BEING A PANELLIST ON LOOSE
WOMEN WAS SUCH A LAUGH.
I was devastated when they didn’t
want me anymore, because at the
time [2011-2012] it was filmed at
the South Bank studios, really close
to where I live. We had great guests
like Joan Collins, somebody from
Blur, lots of other people, and the
bookers had a radar for who was
going to work as a guest and
who wasn’t, so there was never
anybody awkward to deal with, plus
Hollywood names.
I LOVE DOING REALITY TV AND I
ESPECIALLY LOVED DOING
SPLASH! Tom Daley is so impressive.
I don’t normally fangirl about
anybody but I think he’s marvellous.
dive, along with the Olympic diving
blokes, and what’s not to love about
that? I’ve had such a ball doing
reality telly, and I’ll do as many
as they chuck at me. I’m on
Taskmaster now and, although I’m
not allowed to divulge any details,
it’s like progressing back to primary
school. It’s a playground where
there’s no meanness.
MY 60TH BIRTHDAY COINCIDED
WITH EVERYTHING BEING

32 • MAY 2023
 In the studio
recording Older
and Wider

Eclair and her

husband Geoff

CLOSED DOWN. It was May 16, where I was working in Covent

2020, but I don’t do parties—I’m
very antisocial—and I eventually
had a belated celebration in
Stockholm with the old man Geoff
[Powell] two years later. Speaking of
Geoff, we met when I was walking
down the road and he was
underneath his Porsche, fixing it. We
gave each other a look, then days or
weeks later he came into the bar
Garden. He didn’t sit in my station
but I said, “Table five is mine,” and it
just went from there. Q
As told to Simon Button
Jenny Eclair is currently on Taskmaster
on Channel 4, Thursdays at 9pm. She is
touring the UK with her Sixty Plus! (FFS!)
show from September 2. For tickets visit
jennyeclair.com

May Showers
Every month of May, a meteor shower called the Eta Aquariid passes over Earth. It's most
visible in the southern hemisphere, but stargazers in the northern hemisphere can also see it
low in the sky in the predawn hours. This year the shower is visible until May 28, but it peaks
between midnight and dawn on May 6

source: rmg.co.uk

MAY 2023 • 33
 HEALTH

Why you
should consider
volunteering for
a clinical trial

by Sydney Loney from chatelaine

i’m not sure how many tubes of blood

I donated in the end—not being fond of
needles, I fixed my gaze over the nurse’s
left shoulder throughout the
proceedings. But it felt like a lot. And yet
it also felt like it was the least I could do
to give back.

42 • MAY 2023 Illustration by Jeff Kulak

T E A M P L AY E R
I’m now one year into a five-year
clinical trial studying my emotional
response to the results of genomic
sequencing, a relatively new type of test
that digs into nearly every letter of
your DNA code (unlike traditional
genetic testing, which looks at only a
few genes at a time).
One of the goals of the trial is to
determine how useful genomic
sequencing is for both doctors and
patients. In addition to the
bloodletting, all that’s required of me
are periodic 30- to 60-minute Zoom
interviews with the researchers for the
first year and a half, after which the
team will continue to study my health
data quietly in the background.
As someone who has been
successfully treated for two different
types of cancer, I know just how
important clinical trials are when it
comes to finding new ways to detect,
diagnose and treat disease.
Quite frankly, I wouldn’t be here
otherwise. And it was thanks to the
trial of a new drug that a cousin of
mine, who had been diagnosed with a
rare, and terminal, form of lung
cancer, was able to spend an extra
year with his young family.
In my case, scientists were looking
for cancer patients who had been
given a negative genetic test result
and were open to receiving genomic
sequencing in hopes of discovering a
gene related to their disease.
Maybe it would help identify a
new genetic link to cancer. Maybe it
44 • MAY 2023
would offer my family answers
about our seemingly genetic
susceptibility to wayward cell
mutations. And, just maybe, it
would help lead to new treatments
for future generations of cancer
patients. To me, it’s humbling to be
even a small part of that possibility.
Not All Research Is
Created Equal
If you’ve ever shut down a case of the
sniffles with cold medicine or hiked
up your sleeve for a vaccine, it’s only
because that treatment endured a
long, thorough research process. No
new treatment will be approved
before it’s been through rigorous
clinical trials.
According to Dr Jonathon Maguire, a
paediatric scientist at the Li Ka Shing
Knowledge Institute of St Michael’s
Hospital in Toronto, clinical trials are
the gold standard for determining the
benefits and harms of any health
intervention. “We want healthcare to
be as strong as it can be and for the
risks to be as low as possible. For that,
we need clinical trials,” he says.
There are three main types of health
research: population research
(correlational studies that look for
relationships between two or more
variables, say), laboratory studies
with controlled experiments (think
beakers and Bunsen burners) and
clinical trials.
“A clinical trial assigns human
participants to one or more

treatments or interventions to study
their effects,” says Alison Orth, the unit
director of Clinical Trials BC at
Michael Smith Health Research in
Vancouver, and a former clinical trial
participant herself (Orth was part of a
study involving a new whooping
cough vaccine that showed fewer side
effects than its predecessor).
When the trial begins, Phase 1 is all
FOR SOME PEOPLE,
ENROLLING IN A
TRIAL IS ALTRUISTIC.
FOR ME, IT WAS OUT
OF GRATITUDE
about safety and side effects and
involves small numbers of
participants—maybe 20 to 80 at most.
“Once the intervention has
demonstrated its safety, researchers
then focus on how well it works in
different populations with an
increasing number of participants in
the trial, often in multiple countries,”
says Orth.
Phase 2, which can involve up to
300 people, studies whether the
treatment works as expected, while
Phase 3 looks at groups of 1,000 to
3,000 people to determine how the
treatment compares to other options
or a placebo. Finally, once the
treatment has proven itself, Phase 4
READER’S DIGEST
looks at its long-term effects. All of
this can take up to ten years.
While the exact requirements for
clinical trials and the standard of
care differ slightly from country to
country, trials generally follow this
format worldwide, mirroring the
World Health Organisation’s
definition of a clinical trial that has
three to five phases.
The speedy introduction of COVID-
19 vaccines occurred because of an
unprecedented collaboration
between scientists, politicians and
manufacturers on their combined
quest for a safe medical solution to
the pandemic. Countries shared
information and research findings,
extra funding materialised, while red
tape vanished and a lot of non-Covid
research was put on hold. What would
normally have taken years took
months instead.
“It’s essential to understand that
the Covid vaccines were developed
based on science, technology and
preparedness protocols that had
been under clinical development and
testing for some time before the
pandemic,” says Orth.
But in addition to saving countless
lives, the Covid vaccines may point
the way toward faster clinical trials in
the future.
More Awareness,
More Participation
For these trials, researchers need
participants. Unfortunately, not
MAY 2023 • 45
T E A M P L AY E R
everyone is keen to play guinea pig.
In 2019, Canadian researchers (Orth
among them) published a survey of
1,602 people. They found that 49 per
cent were “somewhat willing” to
participate in a clinical trial.
On the other hand, 43 per cent said
they didn’t feel very well informed
about the trial process and 37 per cent
didn’t have any opinion whatsoever.
While many people have no
problem volunteering their time to
other worthy causes, Maguire has
How to Find a Clinical Trial
The World Health Organisation
offers a search portal for both
ongoing and completed trials, so
you can track any interesting new
treatments on the horizon. For its
part, the United States National
Institutes of Health has set up a
comprehensive database of more
than 400,000 clinical studies in
some 150 countries.
Another option is to ask your
GP about clinical trials that might
be a good fit for you. While you
don’t necessarily need a doctor’s
referral, it can be helpful to have
an expert take you through the
risks and benefits of participating
in a trial.
Local university-affiliated
hospitals, medical centres and
46 • MAY 2023
seen first-hand a reluctance to
volunteer for science.
He says that can stem from a fear of
the potential risks (even though, he
says, “The risks are very low—clinical
trials are regulated by research ethics
boards and they just don’t happen if
they’re risky”) and a general sense of
“What’s in it for me?”
It’s a fair question. For some,
enrolling in a trial comes from pure
altruism. Others, like me, enrol out of
a sense of gratitude. As one of Orth’s
patient-support groups are also
excellent places to learn about
clinical trials in your area.
For people who still aren’t quite
sure they want to be part of an
experiment, paediatric scientist
Dr Jonathon Maguire recommends
checking out the People’s Trial.
The website, created by a health-
research board in Ireland, asks
people from around the world
what questions they’d like
answered. It then sets up trials to
find those answers.
One submission: whether
reading a book in bed makes a
difference to sleep. It turns out
that 42 per cent of people felt their
sleep improved after they read a
book in bed. Thank you, science.
 READER’S DIGEST

use the product, indicating an

survey participants said, “Without
previous clinical trials, I would not
have received the excellent care and
treatment plan. I feel it is paying it
forward to be included and I hope
that, when the trial is over, it will help
other women in the future.”
For a long time, women weren’t
explicitly required to be included in
clinical trials. In Canada, for
example, it wasn’t until 1997 that
Health Canada decided they needed
to be. In Europe, EU regulations that
came into effect last year state that
clinical trial participants should
represent the people likely to actually
expectation of inclusion.
“Historically, clinical trials have
lacked demographic diversity in their
study populations,” says Orth. But
everyone gets sick—and not
everyone gets better the same way.
“People may react differently to the
same treatment based on their age,
sex, weight, race or ethnicity,” she
continues. “It’s essential to include
people in trials who closely reflect
the population for whom the
treatment is intended.”
Orth adds that there is finally a
global recognition that we need to
ensure better access and support for
all communities to participate in
clinical trials. However, it’s not
always easy to get people to sign up.
“There’s still a degree of scepticism
about science and the medical
system as a whole,” says Maguire. He
adds that we also don’t celebrate the
people who participate in clinical
trials enough, citing the Covid
vaccine trials as an example.
“Every one of those people saved a
lot of lives,” Maguire explains.
“They’re heroes.” Q
© 2021, SYDNEY LONEY. FROM “TEAM PLAYER,”
CHATELAINE (DECEMBER 2021), CHATELAINE.COM

Seasonal Trends
I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now.
One does, I think, as one gets older
VIRGINIA WOOLF

MAY 2023 • 47
 HEALTH

6 Changes
That Could
Help Your
Asthma
Some triggers for this
1. Ease up on the housework
common breathing
It’s well known that dust can bring
condition may surprise on an attack, but so can the
chemicals in cleaning products like
you. But there are ways of
bleach and detergents. The key to
coping with them easy breathing is to keep dust down
and windows open, while avoiding
sprays and aerosols and opting for
unscented products that are low in
VOCs (volatile organic compounds).

2. Pick painkillers carefully

Up to 20 per cent of asthmatics are
sensitive to aspirin and ibuprofen,
which are NSAIDS (non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs). If you’ve
Susannah Hickling is got a headache or a bad back, it’s
twice winner of better to reach for paracetamol. But,
the Guild of Health be warned, frequent use of
Writers Best Consumer paracetamol has also been linked to
Magazine Health Feature asthma. Beta-blockers used to treat

48 • MAY 2023
high blood pressure and other heart
problems can set off asthma
symptoms in some people too.
3. Calm down
Stress and anxiety make many
conditions worse, and asthma’s no
exception. First off, make sure your
asthma is well managed and you’re
taking your meds as prescribed.
Then try to avoid stress. Easier said
than done, we all know, but eating
well, staying connected with friends
and family, and exercising regularly
will help. Excitement or even
laughing can sometimes provoke an
asthma attack, but breathing
exercises can ease your wheezing.
4. Stay grounded
If there’s a choice between taking the
train or the car and catching a flight,
it’s better to opt for rail or road travel
if you suffer from hard-to-control
asthma. There’s less oxygen at high
altitudes, which puts pressure on the
lungs. Other triggers—such as dust
or perfumes—in the air that’s
circulated in the cabin could also set
you off.
5. Practise asthma-safe sex
Bad news—there are several ways
making love can bring on an attack!
The most obvious one is the physical
activity involved; your heart rate
EATING WELL, SEEING
FRIENDS AND FAMILY,
AND EXERCISING
REGULARLY WILL HELP
increases and you breathe faster.
Heightened emotions play a part too
and if scented products, such as
perfume or scented candles, are in
the mix, these might also trigger
symptoms. Some people have a latex
allergy which can bring on asthma if
you use condoms. Making sure your
condition is well controlled and
avoiding your triggers will help ensure
sex makes you feel good, not ill.
6. Back off from the booze
Do you get a tight chest and struggle
to breathe after a few bevvies?
Unfortunately, you might be allergic
to the sulphites in cider, beer and
wine. These are preservatives that
occur naturally or are added to
alcoholic drinks. You might get
symptoms as soon as you start
drinking or even the following day.
Alcohol also contains histamines.
These, too, can provoke an attack if
you’re sensitive to them. Try to
narrow down which drinks affect you
and stay away. It’s possible to buy
wine that’s low in sulphites. If you’re
unfortunate enough to be sensitive
to all alcohol, it might be best to
avoid it altogether. Sorry! Q
MAY 2023 • 49
H E A LT H
Crazy Facts About Crying
There are three types of tears
The first type, basal tears, keep
the eye lubricated and prevent
infection. We cry reflex tears in
response to, say, peeling an
onion or smoke and, again,
they help fight germs. Last and
definitely not least are
emotional tears, prompted by
strong feelings.
Some people can’t cry Sometimes
people might be too depressed and
emotionally numb to shed tears, but
for others there are physical reasons.
Dry eye syndrome, where the eyes
are dry and gritty, can prevent you
from crying proper tears. It might be
because you spend too much time in
a dry environment, or at a computer
screen, or sometimes it can be age
related or due to a health condition.
Some medications reduce the
quantity of tears you produce—for
example, SSRIs which treat
depression, antihistamines and some
blood pressure meds.
Weeping can make you happy A lot
of people feel better after a good
cry, because shedding tears releases
the feelgood chemicals oxytocin
and endorphins. At any rate,
bottling up your emotions is
considered bad for mental
wellbeing—a University of Texas
50 • MAY 2023
study found it can actually
intensify feelings and make
you aggressive. And then there
are tears of happiness—
when something amazing
happens, you have strong
feelings for someone or you
cry with laughter.
Blubbing is good for your health
Weeping triggers your
parasympathetic nervous system,
lowering your heart and breathing
rates, and blood pressure. A meta-
analysis of 22 studies found an
association between repressing
emotion and a higher risk of
diseases such as cancer and
cardiovascular disease, especially
high blood pressure.
People shed more tears in societies
with greater gender equality Dutch
researchers studying crying across 37
countries found that people,
especially women, were more likely
to cry in wealthier, more democratic
and individualistic societies. They
theorised it was because people had
the freedom to express their
emotions rather than because they
were more unhappy. Q
For more weekly health tips and
stories, sign up to our newsletter
at readersdigest.co.uk

Ask The Expert: Ovarian Cancer
Dr Adrian Franklin is a consultant clinical oncologist at GenesisCare
in Guildford, and the Royal Surrey County Hospital
How did you become a
specialist in treating ovarian
cancer? I like physics and,
as a radiation oncologist, I
do brachytherapy, which is
radiotherapy using
radioactive implants. I started
doing cervix brachytherapy and
one by one all the other gynaecological
tumours came my way, including
ovarian cancer. It’s fascinating and a
great privilege—you meet wonderful
people from all backgrounds.
What symptoms should women look
out for? The symptoms are very
generic. They can be bloating,
abdominal pain, a change in bowel
habits or not eating quite as much. See
your GP if you have persistent tiredness
and bloating together.
Who is most at risk? Being over 50 is a
big risk factor. Starting periods early
together with late menopause, having
no children, a family history of cancer
and being overweight can increase risk.
There’s also a slightly increased risk for
women taking oestrogen-only HRT
and those who have endometriosis.
What can women do to reduce their
risk? Having a healthy, balanced
READER’S DIGEST
lifestyle and being body aware
are important. Certainly,
controlling your weight can
help. If you are worried about
any symptoms, seek advice
as soon as possible.
What are the most interesting
new developments in the detection
and treatment of ovarian cancer? A
couple of studies are looking at BRCA
carriers—carriers of a faulty gene that
can cause breast and ovarian cancer.
Women with this, like Angelina Jolie,
sometimes have mastectomies and
annual MRI scans. Another is looking
at removing the fallopian tubes,
because we think many primary
peritoneal cancers are likely to come
from the fallopian tube. A study finding
an association between women taking
more indigestion tablets and later
being diagnosed with ovarian cancer
means this can now be part of health
surveillance. The big development that
is changing prognosis and quality of
life is the use of PARP inhibitors. This is
a targeted therapy that increases the
time before the disease progresses. Q
For further information go to:
genesiscare.com/uk/condition/cancer/
ovarian-cancer
MAY 2023 • 51
 HEALTH
Pill
Popping
Dr Max muses on
why people (himself
included) take
vitamin supplements
E
very day I do something
that, in certain circles,
would raise a few eyebrows.
If you’re honest, I bet lots of
you do it too.
While I know that the evidence
suggests I am wasting my time and
money, each day without fail, I take
a fist-full of vitamin supplements.
It started off innocently enough—a
multi-vitamin while I was recovering
from flu a few years ago. More
recently I noticed that I’d developed
a funny creaking sound in my
52 • MAY 2023
knees. Imagining my future life in a
wheelchair, despite the assurances
of a rheumatologist friend, I started
taking cod liver oil. After that, it
was easy to add in ginseng, then
vitamin B complex, and garlic. And
of course where would I be without
my echinacea? In bed, nursing a life-
threatening cold, no doubt.
The evidence would suggest that,
as I have a fairly balanced diet, I’m
not infirm, pregnant or alcoholic,
there is absolutely no need for me
to take any form of supplement.
Countless studies have shown that
they make absolutely no difference,
except to your wallet. In addition to
this, research is also emerging that
suggests taking excessive amounts of
supplements can actually do harm.
This got me thinking about the
nation’s penchant for pill popping.
That we need vitamins and minerals
is not in dispute. That we need
them from a bottle is what scientists
would challenge. Studies have
shown that vitamin supplements
simply don’t work in the same way
as those occurring naturally in food,
probably because it’s not just the
vitamin that is important but a whole
complex interplay between naturally
occurring substances which just
can’t be replicated and packaged.
In an often-cited study conducted
by Cornell University, for example,
it was found that apples contained
many other naturally occurring
chemicals in addition to vitamin
C, including antioxidants called
flavonoids and polyphenols. This
meant that eating a small apple gave
an antioxidant effect equivalent to
taking 1500mg of vitamin C—far
higher than most supplements—
and in addition had anti-allergy,
anti-cancer, anti-inflammatory and
anti-viral properties as a result of
the array of other chemicals they
contained termed “phytochemicals”.
Objectively, it’s clear. For your
average person living an average life,
there is absolutely no need to take
vitamin pills.
But the crucual question is: do I
feel any better since I started taking
supplements? And the answer
is a resounding “yes”. I don’t feel
healthier; I don’t get fewer colds.
I can’t remember whole decks of
playing cards or lift cars off trapped
children. But I no longer worry that
in some way my diet is letting me
down. I’m careful not to exceed
recommended daily allowances of
vitamin supplements, but taking a
few pills each morning means I don’t
feel guilty when I eat a pizza and
leave the salad, or when I have Coco
Pops instead of muesli.
This feeling of guilt and
anxiety is a direct result of all the
scaremongering from the medical
and scientific communities about
how we’re all facing ill-health
because we don’t eat properly.
It seems to me that the boom in
vitamin supplements is a direct
result of the pressure that we’re
put under to lead healthy lives. It’s
an artefact of the anxiety that they
manufacture. Vitamin supplements
aren’t really about not getting colds,
saving our hearts or improving our
nervous system. It’s about feeling
a bit more relaxed about eating
banoffee pie instead of a banana.
I get a strange satisfaction from
my morning ritual. I haven’t become
more cavalier in my attitude to my
health since taking supplements,
just less worried about it. I believe
that somehow, despite the evidence,
they must be doing me good. I hand
over my money, pop the pills and,
most importantly, relax. And for that
reason, they’re worth every penny. Q
Max is a hospital doctor,
author and columnist. He
currently works full-time in
mental health for the NHS.
His new book, The
Marvellous Adventure of
Being Human, is out now
MAY 2023 • 53
 HEALTH
The Doctor Is In
Dr Max Pemberton
Q: I was wondering if there is a time
scale for how long it would be before
you would know you were suffering
from side effects from medication. If
you had been taking the medication
for, say, a month or so, with no side
effects, would it be safe to say that
you are unlikely to have any side
effects? Or can side effects appear
months or years later? I am asking
as I want to start using a hormone-
based cream.
- Barbara
A: This is a really good question.
Doctors are often asked a lot about
side effects of medication and, if I’m
honest, I think we’re not always that
good at discussing them before we
prescribe them, leaving patients to
read those drug information leaflets
with long lists of side effects,
which can cause a lot of worry,
often unnecessarily.
All medications have the
possibility of causing side
effects. Topical medications
like creams or ointments tend
to have more local
reactions—things like
rashes, redness or itching,
depending on what the
medication is. Tablets
54 • MAY 2023
can have more widespread effects on
the body because the medication is
distributed everywhere. The majority
of side effects from medications
subside within a few days to weeks.
You mentioned starting a hormone
cream and most of the potential side
effects of these are local skin reactions.
However, some creams are absorbed
into the body, so they can produce
effects elsewhere. You don’t mention
what type of hormone cream so it’s
difficult to give a list of possible side
effects for you.
Oestrogen gel is increasingly being
used as HRT and doesn’t appear to
increase the risk of blood clots. If you
still have a womb though, the current
recommendation is that you might
need to take a form of progesterone to
reduce the risk of uterus (womb)
cancer. Oestrogen creams used in
the vagina to help with dryness
don’t carry the usual risk of HRT,
don’t increase the risk of blood
clots and don’t increase the risk
of womb cancer, so you don’t
need to take progesterone.
As a rule of thumb though,
it’s always a good idea to
specifically ask the doctor
who is prescribing about
possible side effects. Q
illustration by Javier Muñoz
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Want A Better Memory? Walk This Way!
These everyday steps will enrich your recall, says
our memory expert, Jonathan Hancock
A
friend’s son is about to
embark on the Camino
de Santiago—the network
of pilgrim paths that leads
to the cathedral Santiago
de Compostela in Spain. The route
will take him several weeks, and it’s
bound to be a very memorable trip.
But then any walk can do wonders
for your memory—if you let it.
We’re naturally good at
remembering routes. It’s an in-built
survival tactic, and the reason why
many ancient learning techniques
rely on journeys. Picture a familiar
walk, visualise memory-jogging clues
along the way, and when you retrace
your mental steps, you’ll find that all
the images are where you left them—
you can remember your list with ease.
Real walks are even better. They
wake your senses, take you to
inspiring new places and get oxygen
flowing to your brain. Research shows
that 11 minutes of gentle exercise a
day promotes good mental health—
another vital foundation for memory.
Walking with others brings more
benefits. It’s often easier to talk freely
when walking side-by-side rather
than standing face-to-face. And your
56 • MAY 2023
conversations are more memorable—
your brain connects where you were
with what you were talking about.
Here are three easy ways to get these
memory effects working for you:
• To prepare for a presentation or
exam, recap key points as you reach
particular landmarks. Later, thinking
about those stopping-points should
trigger the information you need.
• If you’re trying to stick to a goal or
change a habit, associate it with a
place you pass regularly. Choose an
appropriate image to visualise and
bring that to mind every time you
walk by. You’ll get a regular reminder
to keep your behaviour on track.
• Return to walks you’ve done in
the past that remind you of happy
feelings, people you miss and times
that are wonderful to revisit. Walking
in a familiar landscape, with time to
take in environmental clues, activates
treasured memories like nothing else.
Sometimes, walks really can become
pilgrimages to the past. You certainly
don’t have to go as far as Santiago
de Compostela to tread some
memorable pathways of your own. Q
Simply
click
and go!
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 DATING & RELATIONSHIPS
Just
Divorced
Why it's time for a change in
the way divorced people are
viewed by society
A
mid streamers and
bunting for birthdays,
today you might also find
decorations for divorce
parties in the event-
planning aisle.
Mostly aimed at women, these
wares are bright and cheerful, bearing
slogans like “I do, I did, I’m done!”.
They certainly paint a sunnier
picture of divorce than what women
lived through a century ago. Back
then, divorce was nothing short of a
scandal; a middle finger to social
codes of respectability.
Monica Karpinski is a
writer and editor focused
on women’s health, sex,
and relationships. She is
the founder of women’s
health media platform
The Femedic
58 • MAY 2023
It was proof you’d failed as a
woman, both in pleasing your
husband and keeping your family
unit together.
Today, divorce is something
common and familiar. In the 1990s,
Camilla Parker-Bowles gave high-
profile representation to divorce in a
way that was unprecedented for the
royal family; the 2000s were peppered
with big-name celebrity splits (Tom
Cruise and Nicole Kidman, anyone?).
It happens to our neighbours, friends,
and colleagues—around 42 per cent
of present-day UK marriages will end
in divorce.
But don’t raise a glass to how far
we’ve come just yet. It’s 2023, and
women are yet to completely shake
that centuries-old stigma.
The term “broken home” is still
used to describe families with
divorced parents. We see divorcees
lauded as “brave”—a backhanded
compliment suggesting that being
single is something to fear.
In 2020, newspapers applauded
Davina McCall for “breaking her
silence” on her divorce TODAY, the long run, studies show
simply by speaking about that women are more
it, as if it were something
DIVORCE IS likely to report greater life
she should be SOMETHING satisfaction following
embarrassed about. COMMON divorce than men.
And who could forget How can we shift the
the avalanche of media
AND shame around divorce to
coverage around Jennifer FAMILIAR help us reach the light at
Aniston following her split the end of the tunnel?
from Brad Pitt in 2005? Ending a marriage may
According to the tabloids, her never be easy, but seeing it as a neutral
marriage broke down because she or even positive decision made
was too selfish and career-focused to between two adults can help change
fulfil her womanly duties: popping perceptions around it.
out babies. This starts with the way we speak to
The common thread here, running ourselves. It’s easy to internalise the
right from 1900 to now, is the idea idea that you’re a failure when your
that being a wife—and satisfying the marriage runs its course, but
gendered expectations that come with according to research from the
it—is the good and proper way for University of Arizona, if you instead
women to live. And going against the accept divorce as part of life’s ups and
grain still carries consequences. downs then you’re more likely to fare
Many folks report being judged and better psychologically.
excluded by others post-divorce. One People with this attitude were more
small study even named the social likely to accept their negative feelings
fallout from divorce as the most and treat themselves with kindness.
constant source of distress from the Better still: the researchers found that
entire experience. these are skills that can be taught.
For some, this means they lose With time and practice, we can learn
friends. “I’ve been feeling stigmatised to be more sensitive and empathetic
every time I have to say I’m divorced towards ourselves.
in any social situation,” wrote one Those around us can take a leaf out
user on discussion app Reddit at the of that book, and reflect on how they
end of last year. “Married friends view and act towards divorced people.
seem to have put some distance Social change takes a long time, but
[between us], as if divorce was it’s driven by the choices we make.
contagious or something.” If we can accept that divorce is
Yet divorce itself is often for the perfectly normal, we only need to
better. It might hurt initially, but in start treating it that way. Q

MAY 2023 • 59
 DATING & RELATIONSHIPS
Relationship Advice
Monica Karpinski
Q: I have been using online dating
apps for almost a year now and get
some interest, but more than a few
people I’ve matched with have just
suddenly stopped texting me after
a while. Why are they ghosting
me? Can I do anything to prevent
this from happening? - Jen
A: The reasons for ghosting are
manifold, and sometimes there’s no
good reason at all. Sadly, it does
come with the territory of online
dating—per a 2020 survey by dating
app Hinge, 91 per cent of users say
they’ve been ghosted.
A lot of the time, ghosting is a way
to avoid conflict and uncomfortable
situations. On dating apps, it’s also
absurdly easy: you won’t be held
accountable for going silent, and
have no shortage of other profiles to
connect with instead.
The number one reason that
people ghost is convenience,
according to a 2019 study published
in the journal Imagination,
Cognition, and Personality. It’s
easier to cut communication than
deal with any awkwardness, or to be
vulnerable with someone and see
where things go.
60 • MAY 2023
In situations like this, ghosting is
about them rather than you, and
sadly there’s nothing you can do
about it.
Losing interest in a new match is
another common reason for radio
silence. You could try to prevent
things fizzling out over text by
suggesting a phone call or meeting
up. There’s no firm rule for how
long you should wait, but I say at
least a week.
It also must be said that
sometimes, people ghost to protect
themselves. I’m sure you conduct
yourself with kindness and respect
towards other people on the apps,
but this is worth bearing in mind in
regards to others ghosting you.
If you’ve been ghosted and aren’t
sure why, it’s OK to reach out and
seek answers.
When you do, use clear and
neutral language. For example:
“Hey, I just wanted to check in on
where you’re at with us. If you aren’t
feeling a connection, that’s fine, but
I don’t want to assume anything. Let
me know!”
Only do this once, and if you still
don’t get an answer at all then that
is an answer. Q
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62
INSPIRE

PA I M A G E S / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO
(Left) The Prince of Wales
on a visit to Donaghadee
Harbour in Northern
Ireland, where he
viewed stones lining the
harbour walls that were
decorated with messages
of hope during the
pandemic, May 21, 2021;
(Right) Prince Charles
on his fifth birthday,
November 14, 1953

The Life Of

As the eldest son of Britain's longest-reigning

monarch is crowned, we look back at the life of
King Charles III and ponder what the future of the
monarchy might look like under his rule

BY Jennifer McShane

63
THE LIFE OF KING CHARLES III
W
hen King Charles
III became the
UK’s new sovereign
following the death
of his mother, Queen
Elizabeth II, his first public address
thanked his “darling mama” for her
love and devotion to their family and
the family of nations she so diligently
served through the years of her reign.
It was clear then, the first child of
Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip,
Duke of Edinburgh, was aware of
the enormity of what lay ahead as
her successor, but also his intent to
honour and continue the work she
had done so faithfully for decades.
Charles, 73, was born at Buckingham
Palace in London in 1948. He was just
three years old when he became the
heir apparent as his mother acceded
to the throne as queen, following the
untimely death of her father, King
George VI. For over seven decades, he
had known he would sit on the throne
as his mother did, but in his case, he
had had plenty of time to prepare as
he dutifully worked at, as some have
called it, “the longest apprenticeship
in history.”
From a young age, the future king
saw first hand the sacrifices his
mother made in the devotion to royal
duty as a young woman. Safe to say,
she had far less time than most
mothers to spend with her firstborn
son and heir, whose known shyness
and sensitivity as a small child,
64 • MAY 2023
alongside the frequent-yet-necessary
absences of both his parents, was
noted by those closest to him.
When Princess Elizabeth (she was
not yet queen until her accession to
the throne in 1952) joined Prince
Philip at his naval posting in Malta
over Christmas 1949, they left behind
their one-year-old son with his
grandparents at Sandringham, and
apparently missed seeing his first steps
and first teeth. Further foreign trips
followed without their eldest son, and
when Prince Charles uttered his first
word, it was apparently “Nana,”
addressed to his nanny, whom he saw
more of than any other person at that
time. It was not easy for the parents or
the child, but over the years, Charles
has frequently spoken of admiring
them both for their devotion to their
family and the monarchy, even when
their absence undoubtedly left a gap in
the formative years of his childhood.
His mother’s absence meant more
time spent with his father, Prince
Philip, who noted his young son’s
more reserved demeanour (compared
to the more robust character of his
sister, Princess Anne, for example)
PA I M A G E S / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO
and sought to encourage his son.
However, those closest to Charles
noted it didn’t always have the
desired affect. As Prince Philip’s
cousin, Lady Mountbatten said,
according to a biography on Philip,
the prince, “could see that Charles
was a terribly sensitive boy who was
going to come up against a lot of
 READER’S DIGEST

(Clockwise from top)

Princess Elizabeth
and the Duke of
Edinburgh with
Prince Charles, April
26, 1949; The Prince
of Wales waves to the
crowd as he is driven
from Buckingham
Palace to Euston
station to take a
train to Balmoral,
and spend Whitsun
with his parents and
his sister, Princess
Anne, May 27, 1955;
Princess Elizabeth
with her children
Prince Charles and
Princess Anne on
Anne's first birthday,
August 15, 1951

MAY 2023 • 65
 THE LIFE OF KING CHARLES III

(Top) A portrait of Prince

Charles, the Prince of Wales,
commissioned for his 18th
birthday, November 14,
1966. He is wearing the
Balmoral tartan; (Bottom)
Prince Charles, colonel-
in-chief of the parachute
regiment, at the South
Cerney, Gloucestershire
dropping zone where he
made two parachute jumps
in one day as part of a Royal
Air Force training course for
his parachutist's wings, April
25, 1978

PA I M A G E S / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO

problems… I’m sure he just wanted to
help make his character more
robust… but in retrospect I think he
overdid it sometimes".
He was the first heir to the throne of
Britain to go to school rather than
getting tutored at the family palace,
briefly attending Hill House, a small
pre-prep school in London, aged
eight, before going as a boarder to his
father’s old prep school, Cheam.
Charles, a very different character to
his father, has spoken of not enjoying
his time there. The same could be said
for his time at Gordonstoun, where
his father had been head boy, with
Charles being open about its tough
environment, though still appreciative
of his experience there, particularly
into his adult years.
It was also in Gordonstoun where
his love of the arts came to the fore
and he would act in numerous plays.
“It was only tough in the sense that it
demanded more of you as an
individual than most other schools
did—mentally or physically. I am
lucky in that I believe it taught me a
great deal about myself… It taught me
to accept challenges and take the
initiative,” Charles said in a House of
Lords speech in 1975.
Charles grew gradually closer to
both his parents. Following Queen
Elizabeth’s death, he said in a
documentary aired on the BBC that
he felt incredibly “lucky” to have her
as his mother. And his Prince’s Trust
charity was one of several examples of
READER’S DIGEST
shared interests with his father (who
had earlier set up the Duke of
Edinburgh Award scheme).
Royal historian Mok O’Keeffe adds
that it’s this work with his Prince’s
Trust that set into motion what he’ll
continue as king, championing the
marginalised in society—the
foundation of The Prince’s Trust. “His
work with The Prince’s Trust has given
many the skills and confidence to
improve their lives,” he explains.
In 1970, he graduated from the
University of Cambridge with a
Bachelor of Arts degree, becoming the
first heir apparent to earn a university
degree. Cambridge later awarded him
a Master of Arts degree.
He became the Prince of Wales in
1969, after he had spent a term at the
University College of Wales at
Aberystwyth, where he learned to
speak Welsh. Two years later, Charles
took his seat in the House of Lords,
and then spent the next few years
serving in both the Royal Navy and
Royal Air Force, following in his
father's footsteps.
In 1981, the world watched as he
married Lady Diana Spencer, who
became the Princess of Wales. The
couple had two sons, Prince William
and Prince Harry, second and sixth in
line to the throne. Their marriage was to
be a tumultuous one and the couple
eventually agreed to separate in late
1992 and divorced in 1996. Tragedy
struck when, in 1997, Diana was killed
MAY 2023 • 67
THE LIFE OF KING CHARLES III
in a car accident in Paris, with the
monarchy thrust into the spotlight and
closely scrutinised for their response to
such a publicly beloved woman’s death.
It was among the most challenging
times up to that point both for him and
the royal family, with Charles no doubt
noting the pressure the Queen came
under during the previous years,
especially her “annus horribilis” of 1992.
Happier times were ahead for the
then prince, marrying Camilla Parker
Bowles in 2005, who became the
Duchess of Cornwall. He met Camilla
at a polo match around 1980 and
despite the challenges of their
friendship and then relationship
widely reported on over the years, the
Queen and many others were
delighted at this new chapter in his life.
Charles and Camilla, 75, are also
expected to be coronated side-by-side,
per Queen Elizabeth's request that
Camilla become queen consort—the
title given to the wife of a reigning king.
With his reign already begun, all eyes
are on King Charles as he prepares to
make his own mark on the monarchy.
Reports have suggested his preference
for a more “slimmed down” version of
the monarchy we know now, and
though we’re not privy to the changes
he’ll enact, he has already started
shifting a few things around. In his
first public address as King, Charles
named Prince William to be the
Prince of Wales, the title he himself
held before the Queen’s death. Mok
68 • MAY 2023
O’Keeffe agrees that he has had time
to outlay a vision for what he will
bring to the monarchy as king, but
also that there are challenges ahead.
“The King has had significant time
to consider what he will bring to the
monarchy. At the same time he has
supported heritage, with restoration
of Dumfries House, and a focus on
sustainability over the years—in late
2019, for example, he launched the
Sustainable Markets Initiative—with
his focus on organic gardening, and
rural life through the Prince’s
Countryside Fund,” the royal expert
continued. “As the monarch, his role
is primarily ceremonial, so he will be
unable to be as vocal as he used to be
when Prince of Wales, but it's clear
from his work to date that he will
want all his subjects to feel
represented and included".
King Charles will have to be ready
for the obstacles to come too. “With
family difficulties, particularly
involving Prince Harry and his recent
book, the rise of republicanism and
much more holding of public
institutions to account, King Charles
will need to navigate a difficult path.
PA I M A G E S / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO
However, I believe he has brought
fresh perspective and a willingness to
learn—this has given him a perfect
mindset to ensure the royal family
continues to be relevant, support
global Britain and ensure that it
represents the diverse communities of
Britain and the Commonwealth in the
21st century". Q
 READER’S DIGEST

(Top) The Prince and

Princess of Wales in
an open carriage,
waiting to drive to
Buckingham Palace
after their wedding,
July 29, 1981;
(Bottom) The Prince
of Wales and the
Duchess of Cornwall,
as Patron of the Big
Lunch, attend the
Big Jubilee Lunch
on the pitch at The
Oval cricket ground,
London, on day
four of the Platinum
Jubilee celebrations,
June 5, 2022

MAY 2023 • 69
 INSPIRE

My Britain:
Ballater, Scotland
picturesque village surrounded by

A majestic countryside, Ballater has a

longstanding connection with the royal
family. It is the nearest town to Balmoral Castle,
and many of the local businesses have had royal
warrants bestowed upon them.
Dig a little deeper and you will find a resilient
community that has pulled together through
storms, floods and fires. The sense of connection
between locals is palpable, with initiatives like
Victoria Week bringing people together for duck
races and scarecrow competitions. Venture just
outside of Ballater and you’ll come face-to-face
with the natural world, from stunning lochs to
untamed wildlife. Should you stroll along the
glorious Loch Muick, you might just be
rewarded with the sight of a golden eagle.
Alice Gawthrop spoke to some locals to find
out what makes living in Ballater so special. È

70
IAIN MAST ER TON / ALAMY STOCK PH OTO
M Y B R I TA I N : B A L L AT E R
Julia McIntosh is the owner of
Wood and Wool, an interior design
shop in the heart of Ballater that
sells bespoke furniture, paintings
and more
wood-and-wool.co.uk
I’ve lived near Ballater for about
50 years. I originally lived in a
remote place in the Highlands
and then moved to Aberdeen. My
grandparents lived in Ballater so
there’s a family connection.
As a child, I used to visit what was
known then as the Toy Shop. That’s
actually the building that now houses
Wood and Wool. When it was the Toy
Shop, it was frequented by the Royal
Family, from Prince Charles and his
brothers and sisters to Charles’ own
children. The building is very well-
remembered for that connection.
Ballater has a very calming
influence on you. The local people
are exceptionally friendly, it’s a very
tight community. It became closer
after Storm Frank in 2015, which
wiped out a huge chunk of the retail
part of Ballater, along with many
residential houses. That closeness
has continued all these years and the
spirit of Ballater is very positive. They
welcome anybody that comes into
the community. It’s just a warm
feeling when you’re here.
Wood and Wool was initially a
hobby for both my husband and
myself. Almost unintentionally it
72 • MAY 2023
grew into a very successful business.
My husband is the wood side of
Wood and Wool, and I started as the
wool side, as initially I was going to
develop my love of textiles. As it
happens, my painting has become
my main subject. At its heart, the
idea for Wood and Wool was for my
husband and I to bring our crafts
together. Most of the work within
Wood and Wool is created by us.
My favourite place in Ballater is
actually the building that houses
Wood and Wool. The building was
destroyed in Storm Frank, although
we didn’t own it at the time. When
we bought the property, it was
derelict and hadn’t been occupied
since the storm. We put a lot of hard
work and love into it. It was the last
building in the town centre that was
unoccupied. Because of its history,
and maybe my childhood memories
of visiting when it was a toy shop, it
felt important to us to bring it back to
life. We felt like we completed the
jigsaw of the community. Everyone
was delighted when the lights came
on and it came alive again.

Megan Taylor works at Deeside
Books and Gifts, managing the gift
side of her grandparents’ business
since 2016
deesidebooks.com
I was born in Torphins and brought
up in Kincardine O'Neil, so I have
always lived in Royal Deeside. My
grandparents have owned their shop
here in Ballater since I was very
young and I have a lot of memories
spending time in their book shop. I
was very close to them growing up
and was always coming to Ballater to
stay over. Eventually, I did move in
with them for a couple of years as it
made it easier for work and I loved
living in Ballater.
I don't currently live in Ballater but
I commute from Strachan for work
most days, and I still love it. The
peace and quiet, the gorgeous walks
and views—it felt like a holiday every
day! Whether it is a beautiful
summer’s day, or we have a few feet
of snow, Ballater is always
breathtaking. The backdrop of
Lochnagar is a view that I never get
tired of driving towards in the
morning before work. It makes me
feel so proud.
The community here is like no
other, everyone looks out for one
another. There are groups for all
sorts of needs within the village, so
no one ever feels alone here. There
are always events on and things to
READER’S DIGEST
do. In times of need, the community
of Ballater comes together and
everyone is accounted for.
Deeside Books was first
established as an antique and out-of-
print book shop in 1997. It was
refurbished in 2016, after Storm
Frank damages, introducing Deeside
Gifts into the business. It's special for
me to work here because I see my
grandparents most days—that is
something I will treasure forever. I
love seeing my regular customers
and meeting new people. It's so
interesting hearing about other
people's lives and where they have
come from. My favourite comment I
get is, "You are so lucky to live here!”
As if I could possibly forget!
My favourite place in Ballater has
to be the tranquility of being
alongside the River Dee, or any of
the many walks we have in and
around Ballater.
MAY 2023 • 73
M Y B R I TA I N : B A L L AT E R
Reesha Wales is the manager of The
Bothy, a friendly and cosy cafe with
an outdoor store next door
facebook.com/ballaterbothy
I used TO live in Braemar as a
teenager but we actually holidayed
in Ballater because my step-dad was
a policeman in Ballater, so we’ve
always had a bit of a connection
with it. About ten years ago I
moved back. My mum’s here, all my
family’s here, it’s nice to have that
connection. My husband moved
here to Ballater with me. Now he’s a
greenskeeper on the golf course—a
real dream-come-true job!
Ballater just has that special
feeling. My husband always says,
"the further north you go, the
friendlier people get!" In Ballater, if
you see someone walking down the
street you still say, “Morning!” People
still do that here, there’s that
community feel. And there’s so much
74 • MAY 2023
that happens in the village which is
all geared towards community. For
example, we have Victoria Week,
where there are activities on all
through the week, and that’s
organised by the people who live in
the village.
We’ve been through a lot. In 2015,
we had a big flood, and then the
station burned down in the same
year. Everyone really pulled together
and reacted quickly. For example,
after the flood, we created a flood
response team. Everyone wants to be
part of Ballater together, it’s not every
man for himself. It’s very connected.
There’s a strong outdoor culture
too. In The Bothy, we made up little
leaflets that show you the walks
around Ballater. Every day, they all
get taken by people keen to get out
there! It’s stunning to live in. I
actually live a mile outside the
village and honestly it could be
anywhere in the world, it’s stunning.
And the wildlife is amazing, too. You
can go up to Loch
Muick and see deer
roaming around. We’ve
got buzzards and red
kites, and recently a
couple came into The
Bothy and said they’d
seen golden eagles. We
had a kestrel on our
fence the other day. It’s
just amazing.
The royal connection
for us is so special. They

come to Ballater and they’re able to
just be normal people. You might
bump into someone you recognise in
a local shop or cafe but you don’t
talk to them, they’re just there having
their coffee. It’s nice because Ballater
doesn’t talk about the royals, we
respect them. And the revenue they
bring to our village is huge. When the
flood happened in 2015, they sent
sandbags to block the golf course so
water couldn’t come in any more. As
locals we’ve invested in them and
they’ve invested in us. It’s really
special to have that.
The Bothy is a great place to work.
I’ve got a really great team! The
definition of a bothy is a place to
come after a really long walk,
Loch Muick
somewhere to kick off your shoes
with a fire and a stove and simple,
hearty food. It’s basically somewhere
to escape from the weather. And The
Bothy really captures that cosy,
comforting atmosphere. The owners
of The Bothy actually started a
mountain shop in Braemar first in
1986, Braemar Mountain Sports,
which holds Charles’ royal warrant. I
think because it was outdoor folk
that started it, that kind of continued
all the way through and shaped the
feel of The Bothy.
My favourite spot in Ballater is
actually Loch Muick. It’s just out the
back of Balmoral and it’s just
stunning. It’s absolutely beautiful,
and it’s right on our doorstep. Q
MAY 2023 • 75
If I Ruled
The World
Helen
Lederer
Best known for playing the
dippy Catriona in sitcom
Absolutely Fabulous, Helen
Lederer has an acclaimed
career of TV appearances,
stand-up and comedy writing
I would have a room called
“Chatham House Rules”, where
people can go and seek debate
without recourse to judgement.
Words, language and passions will be
shared. The experience would be
filled with growth, learning and
laughs, and what happens in the
room stays in the room. This means
people will finally have a chance to
learn about how we are evolving and
be in an environment where they can
speak freely, and eventually, we can
move towards a place of
76 • MAY 2023
understanding without fear of
differences between people.
Everyone would be given free attic
loft insulation. If you are lucky
enough to have a loft, then the state
would insulate it free of charge. Nice
people would come around and
locate your loft, possibly adding a
stepladder for ease, but it would
become entirely normal for it to be
insulated for free by the state.
We would aim for a society where,
like the French, we kiss more.
We’ve never kissed less. Monitoring
health and safety of viruses and
immunity, of course, we could
reintroduce more physicality in our
social communication habits,
especially since we have become
very isolated from each other as
humans. I’m betting that we could
still be aware of health concerns

while increasing contact on a day-to-
day basis.
Everyone in a neighbourhood
would have easy access to a system
where they can effortlessly become
part of their own road or cul-de-
sac. I feel like this would help people
feel less isolated. They could opt in
or out, it wouldn’t be like Big Brother,
but it would make it easy to make
friends with neighbours, which is
something that has been lost as well.
Thank you letters would be
normalised again. They would be
reintroduced in schools as
extensions of communication
because of how obsolete they have
become. Creative thank you letters
would be a thing to be encouraged,
even in the form of an email. It
would be normal to thank people
after a connection or a gift.
There would be more joyful
opportunities for people over 60. It
would be easy to find work and there
would be a different attitude to those
over 60 in the workplace. People with
maturity would be valued more as
workers by companies. Ideally,
anyone under this category of over
60 would be headhunted for specific
opportunities, and this would be
proactively made normal. I think it is
beneficial to have a mix of
generations in the workplace, and we
need to value those over 60 because
INSPIRE
people are living longer and their
skills are hard won. For instance, I
wouldn’t mind having a stint working
at B&Q in the paint section. I think
people should be more free to move
around the workplace, as elders.
We’d encourage reviewers of the arts
to praise the endeavour of the artist
instead of judging with labelled
concepts. We need to recognise that
art and creativity are values in
themselves and to review art always
with this in mind. This will enable
people to perform a range of
comedies without limitations. Things
don’t always have to mean
something; they can just be funny. It
is important for us to learn to laugh
without being told what to laugh at—
this is a passion of mine—and even
more important for this form of
comedy to be expressed both on
stage and in print. Laughter is a
health asset—if we don’t laugh, we
become miserable. The character I’m
playing in the play I’m touring with,
The Birds and the Bees, definitely
needs to be opened up more as a
person. I’m particularly interested in
the art of laughter itself and having a
lack of judgement. Q
AS TOLD TO IAN CHADDOCK
Helen Lederer appears alongside Michael
Starke in the play The Birds and the
Bees on tour all over the UK from May
to August and she founded Comedy
Women in Print Prize (CWIP) in 2018
MAY 2023 • 77
 INSPIRE

THE HISTORY OF
CORONATION CEREMONIES
As the nation prepares to celebrate the first
coronation for 70 years, Harry Verity takes a look
at Charles III’s decades-long path to the Abbey A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO

The coronation
chair, with the
Stone of Scone, in
Westminster Abbey,
at the coronation of
Geroge VI, 1936
78
The radiant Queen Elizabeth II photographed with her
family in the Throne Room of Buckingham Palace after
her coronation in 1953
T H E H I S TO RY O F C O R O N AT I O N C E R E M O N I E S
W
hen King Charles
III and Queen
(Consort) Camilla
procession through
London on the way
to Westminster Abbey in the Gold
State Coach to renditions of Handel’s
"Zadok the Priest", it will mark the
culmination of decades of behind-
the-scenes, meticulous planning.
For Charles, the first monarch to
ascend to the British throne in the 21st
century, the coronation has presented
a unique series of delicate roadblocks
that have taken decades to overcome.
The Great Transition
While we are long past the days when
the country would go to war over rival
claimants to the throne, Charles’
accession after 70 years still provoked
tensions. Fears about his outspoken
political views on environmentalism,
his short fuse, or the failure of the
British people to accept his wife as
Queen were all very real challenges in
the days following the late Queen
Elizbeth’s death in September.
Mindful of this, for at least the last
quarter of a century, extensive
planning and a savvy PR operation
have been underway, to ensure the
coronation is the ceremonial high
point of his accession, drawing a line
under all of these issues and bringing
the country together in celebration.
Operation Golden Orb
The plans for Charles’ coronation are
80 • MAY 2023
known by the codename Golden Orb.
They are overseen by a committee
chaired by Earl Marshall—the Duke of
Norfolk. It is thought insensitive to
discuss the coronation during the reign
of a predecessor. However, the name of
the committee was leaked in a
government document in 2016, when
it was left unredacted.
The committee has been meeting
twice a year since at least the early
2000s, and its work coincided with
other secret plans including Operation
London Bridge—plans for Queen
Elizabeth’s death and funeral—and
Operation Spring Tide for Charles’
accession to the throne.
Call Me… George?
In 2005, it was suggested Charles had
already begun discussions about his
regnal name—the name he would take
as King. The decision is not as obvious
as you might assume.
There are many sensitives
surrounding the name Charles. The
first King Charles was put on trial by
parliament and executed in 1649 and
the second King Charles was famously
a womaniser.
When Charles II’s brother James II
was also forced into exile in 1688, his
descendants staged rebellions to win
back the throne. One of them, Bonnie
Clockwise (L-R); St Edward's Crown; street party
in London, held to celebrate the Coronation of
King George VI; Royal family gathered after the
Coronation on June 2, 1953; Painting of the
Coronation of Queen Victoria of England
 A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO / S U P E R S TO C K

MAY 2023 • 81
READER’S DIGEST
T H E H I S TO RY O F C O R O N AT I O N C E R E M O N I E S

A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO / S U P E R S TO C K

82 • MAY 2023

Prince Charlie, referred to himself as
King Charles III.
It was suggested that Charles might
reign as King George VII in honour of
his grandfather, the late Queen’s father.
But in the end he adopted the name
we’ve always known him by: Charles.
And thus during the coronation
service, the Archbishops will publicly
confirm this by reciting the famous
lines: "Sirs, I here present unto you
King Charles, your undoubted King,
wherefore all you who are come this
day to do your homage and service".
Defending Faith
While the crowning is the most famous
part of the ceremony—when St
Edward’s Crown is placed upon his
head—it is the anointing by holy oil,
consecrated in Jerusalem, that is
arguably the most important and
solemn part of the ceremony. This will
be a powerful statement affirming
Charles’ traditional position as a divine
monarch who rules for life.
One of the British sovereign's many
titles is Defender of the Faith—a title
originally given to King Henry VIII by
the Pope but reappropriated by Henry
when he split with the Catholic Church
as the head of the Church of England.
Media reports in 1994 suggested that
Charles had aspirations to be a
Clockwise (L-R); The Ampulla and Coronation
Spoon; Charles and Camilla on their wedding day;
Tin boxes bearing images of British monarchs for
sale in Portobello market; Queen Elizabeth II riding
in the gold state coach enroute to her coronation
READER’S DIGEST
Defender of Faith rather than a
Defender of the Faith to reflect modern
multi-faith Britain. This would have
been potentially problematic, as
during the coronation ceremony the
King must swear an oath to uphold the
Protestant religion and to maintain,
"inviolably, the settlement of the
Church of England".
However, In 2015 Charles clarified
his remarks. "It’s always seemed to me
that, while at the same time being
Defender of the Faith, you can also be
protector of faiths… the Church has a
duty to protect the free practice of all
faiths in this country".
Operation QC
By far the biggest decision of Charles’
coronation and a subject of debate
spanning 30 years is whether there
would be one or two thrones at
Westminster Abbey.
Following the King’s divorce from
Diana in 1996, Charles had ambitions
to marry Camilla Parker Bowles. He
hired PR expert Mark Bolland to
rehabilitate Camilla’s image and
present her as the future Queen.
When tragedy struck in August 1997
and Diana was killed in a car crash,
public opinion turned against Camilla.
Charles and Camilla did not appear
in public together until 1999 and when
they finally married in 2005, the palace
put out a statement declaring that
Camilla would be known as HRH
Princess Consort in the event that
Charles ascends to the throne.
MAY 2023 • 83
T H E H I S TO RY O F C O R O N AT I O N C E R E M O N I E S
This was an unprecedented
situation: legally, all former wives of
British and English Kings had been
known as Queen. Nevertheless, it
appeared to settle the issue, mindful of
the sensitivities towards Diana.
In 2018, however, this statement was
removed from the Clarence House
website. In 2020, Charles’ office
insisted that Camilla would still be
known as Princess Consort when he
came to the throne.
In the end, it fell to the late Queen
Elizabeth to clear up the issue when
she issued a statement on her own
Accession Day in 2022 declaring her
"sincere wish" that Camilla be styled
Queen Consort.
Privately, it is believed Charles has
long lobbied for Camilla to be Queen,
even re-writing his coronation vows
before this announcement to include a
reference to her in what has been
termed Operation QC—Queen
Camilla—by the press.
The History of the
Coronation Ceremony
The coronation ceremony dates back
over 1,000 years and emulates tradition
in Europe in which the church had
great sway over affairs of state.
The first crowned King of all England
was Edgar, which took place on
Whitsunday in AD973 at Bath Abbey. A
plan for that coronation, devised by
Saint Dunstan, survives.
By the time of the publication of the
Liber Regalis (or Royal Book) in 1382
84 • MAY 2023
for the coronation of Richard II’s
consort, Queen Anne, the ceremony
had been updated to include more of a
role for nobles, as well as the church.
Since the coronation of Harold II in
1066, all monarchs have been crowned
in the Abbey. The coronation chair in
which monarchs are crowned was
introduced in 1296, during the reign of
King Edward I.
St Edward’s Crown, which is
traditionally used to crown the
monarch, was created for the
coronation of Charles II, following the
Restoration in 1660. It is based on an
original used to crown St Edward the
Confessor that was melted down
during the Interregnum.
Over time the service has expanded
and contracted to fit with the times.
George IV’s ceremony was predictably
lavish and ostentatious. William IV had
to be persuaded to have one at all and
the services of the early 20th century,
including that of Edward VIII and
Alexandra, focused more on the
pageantry to reflect the might of British
Empire, which was then at its peak.
The coronation of Elizabeth II was
the first to be televised in its entirety.
70 years on, the coronation of King
Charles III and Queen (Consort)
Camilla will include a bigger role for
other faiths and will be shorter,
mindful of the cost of living crisis. Q
Harry Verity is an author and history
journalist. His debut crime thriller The Talk
Show is available now

CHARLES’ PATH TO THE
THRONE TIMELINE
1960s Preparations begin for Operation
London Bridge, the secret plans for the
funeral and death of Elizabeth II, and the
accession of her heir, Charles.
1969 Charles is invested as Prince of
Wales at a ceremony in Caernarfon Castle,
aged 20.
1981 Marries Lady Diana Spencer in a
ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral.
1982 Fathers an heir of his own, Prince
William of Wales, securing the future of
the throne.
1994 Media speculates over his plans to
be Defender of Faith rather than Defender
of the Faith when he ascends to the throne .
1996 Following revelations that he
committed adultery with Camilla Parker
Bowles, Diana and Charles formally divorce.
1997 Diana is tragically killed in a car crash
in Paris. Media and public opinion of Camilla
is hostile.
1999 Charles and Camilla are seen in public
for the first time, paving the way for her
formal acceptance into the royal family.
2000s Planning for Operation Golden Orb—
Charles’ coronation—intensifies as the
Queen celebrates her Golden Jubilee.
READER’S DIGEST
2005 Marries long-term partner Camilla
Parker Bowles. Clarence House announces
that Camilla will be styled as HRH The
Princess Consort upon Charles’ accession to
the throne.
2010s Takes over more responsibilities from
Queen Elizabeth and begins holding weekly
practice meetings with prime ministers to
prepare for his role as sovereign.
2018 At a Commonwealth Heads of
Government meeting, leaders agree that
Charles should succeed Elizabeth II as Head
of the Commonwealth.
2022 Charles is now centre stage. He fills in
for the late Queen during her Platinum
Jubilee, at the state opening of parliament,
and during the royal maundy service as she
suffers from mobility issues.
Feb 6, 2022 The late Queen declares it her
"sincere wish" that Camilla be known as
Queen Consort when Charles takes the
throne, paving the way for her to be
crowned beside him at the Abbey.
Sept 8, 2022 Queen Elizabeth II dies at
Balmoral aged 96, setting in place
Operations London Bridge, Spring Tide
and Unicorn to mark national mourning
and transition.
May 6, 2023 The culmination of decades of
work, Charles III and Camilla will be crowned
King and Queen (Consort) of the United
Kingdom and the Commonwealth Realms in
a smaller, simpler ceremony.
MAY 2023 • 85
COMPETITIONS

W I N A N O V E R N I G H T L U X U R Y G E TAWAY
COURTESY OF

Grove of Narberth
Hidden in the rolling Narberth hills, surrounded by
meadows, woodland and mature gardens, if you weren’t
looking for the Grove you might just miss it.
The warmest of Welsh welcomes awaits you here, the kind reserved for the oldest
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Breathe in the magic, soak in the fresh air, and escape to thoughtful luxury.

Win an overnight stay for 2 in a Cottage Garden Suite, including breakfast and a
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Enjoy our unbuttoned approach to exceptional hospitality, and experience a
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To book or for more information visit

www.grovenarberth.co.uk

How many AA Rosettes does their restaurant Fernery have?

A. 1
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C. 4
Simply answer A, B or C on the entry form or enter online. See page 151.

www.grovenarberth.co.uk
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excluding all public holidays. Valid to November 2023
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97
The weekend of May 6 will see the
celebration of one of the most historic
events ever to happen in the UK, with
King Charles III’s coronation taking place
on Saturday, May 6 2023 at Westminster
Abbey in London.
But the festivities don’t stop there. With
a concert and laser light show at Windsor
Castle on Sunday 7th and an extra bank
holiday on Monday May 8, along with
community initiatives such as the Big Help
Out—and pubs, clubs and bars being able
to stay open for an extra two hours on the
Friday and Saturday—the whole country is
gearing up for some fantastic festivities.
Read on to explore how you can make
the most of the weekend, on this, the most
memorable of events.
Get ready to tune in
Queen Elizabeth II’s Coronation was
broadcast live on TV on June 2, 1953. With
more than 20 million people watching
98 • MAY 2023
the service, TV outnumbered the radio
audience for the first time ever, and was
propelled into being a mainstream medium.
This year, both the coronation and the
“Coronation Concert” will be televised,
and there are also plenty of other royalty-
related TV specials scheduled, so settle
down on the sofa with a glass of something
chilled to celebrate.
However, if you fancy venturing out,
there are also plans for the Coronation to be
televised on large screens at more than 30
locations across the UK. The public screens
will be hosted across all four nations of the
KG PA LT D / A L A M Y S TO C K P H OTO
United Kingdom, and current locations
include Cardiff Castle, Belfast City Hall, Piece
Hall in Halifax, Jubilee Square in Brighton
and Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens.
A right Royal feast
A feast fit for a king? Yes please! For some
Coronation party food, why not cook up a
delicious combination of traditional British

sweet and savoury nibbles. Finger food
is always easy and allows guests to graze
across the day, so consider afternoon-tea
style sandwiches with a range of fillings
such as cream cheese and cucumber,
coronation chicken, egg mayonnaise, or
smoked salmon—and don’t forget to cut
off the crusts for an extra elegant touch!
Supplement your sandwiches with quiches,
scotch eggs and sausage rolls, and go for
trifle, victoria sponge and scones with jam
and cream for dessert.
Decorate and celebrate!
What better way to celebrate a once-in-a-
lifetime event, than in quintessential British
style? Whether you go for brilliantly British,
or elegantly understated, there are some
fantastic coronation decorations, ranging
from “Royal Coach” cake stands to London
themed cake toppers via celebratory
King’s cushions and union jack bunting.
Check out sites like Etsy or Not on The
High Street for something more beautiful
and bespoke, or look for brands such as
Emma Bridgewater who have launched
coronation-themed ranges featuring iconic
napkins, plates, mugs and more.
Get organised
If you’re catering, lower stress levels and
make sure that you have everything you
need before the weekend. Book in a home
delivery from the supermarket, and check
the opening times for your local stores
for any last minute items. Hosting guests?
Make your house their home with some
celebratory touches such as fresh flowers
by their bed (King Charles is apparently
particular to delphiniums). Remember
also that Monday is a bank holiday, so plan
ahead if visitors are using public transport
and check for any changes to timetables.
Party games
Games are always good fun at the best of
times. If you’ve got a group of you together
why not hark back to days gone with some
traditional British fun? If the weather’s
good, get out in the garden and enjoy a
three-legged race, then cool off with some
apple bobbing. An indoor or outdoor
treasure hunt can get everyone involved—
make the clues Royal themed if you can.
If the weather stops outdoor play,
then old-fashioned board games such as
tiddlywinks, backgammon or marbles can
while away the time. Rummage in second
hand shops or look at ebay (or in the loft!)
to find the real vintage deal. Alternatively
pop up a dart board, and indulge in one of
Charles’ (alleged) favourite games!
MAY 2023 • 99
Get crafty
If you’ve got the grandkids or just feeling a
little bit arty, why not use the bank holiday
to indulge in some coronation-themed
crafts? Try making and decorating your
very own paper crown, or creating your
very own castle out of cardboard (loo rolls
make great turrets). For something a little
bit different, use red, white and blue crepe
paper to make streamers—simply tear off
long strips of each colour paper, hang some
string just above head height, then drape
and secure the crepe paper with sellotape.
Add a homemade “Royal Coronation” sign,
and you’ve created a fantastic backdrop for
photos and more!
Community celebrations
There are lots of community events
planned across the UK. On Sunday, the
Coronation Big Lunch is a way of bringing
communities together to celebrate
with food and fun in a nationwide act
of friendship. From street parties to a
neighbourly cuppa, the idea behind this is
to get to know the people you live near and
mark this historic occasion together.
On Monday, the Big Help Out has been
planned to encourage people to join the
work being done to support
their local area and to try
volunteering for
themselves. Both
Big Lunch and Big
Help Out events are
individually organised,
so check your local
listings to see if there’s an event
happening near you.
100 • MAY 2023
An event to remember
There’s no need to forget about the
coronation once the weekend is over—
there are some great collectables and
memorabilia to invest in. Westminster
Collection has a wonderful range of coins
to commemorate the occasion, including a
fantastic limited-edition God Save the King
Coronation Dual-Plated 50p. With a run of
only 50,000, it’s a good investment too.
Alternatively, Danbury Mint has a wide
range of commemorative coins, stamps
and gifts, including a limited-edition hand-
crafted mohair Steiff bear. Called “God Save
The King”, this collectable is a lovely way to
honour King Charles III and remember the
event in years to come.
Join someone else’s party
Of course, hosting Coronation celebrations
may not be quite your thing. If that’s
the case, let someone else do the party
planning. Warner Leisure Hotels are running
UK based King’s Coronation weekend
breaks across all of their hotels (subject
to room availability) with check-in on
Friday, May 5. Choose from their stunning
countryside or coastal properties; all will be
offering free bubbly and live
streaming of the coronation, so
you can sit back, relax and
enjoy the fun, without
any of the hassle. Q
FOR MORE
INFORMATION VISIT
royal.uk
 TR AVEL & ADVENTURE

France’s oldest city is as

vibrant and diverse as it was
more than two millennia ago

The Notre-Dame
de la Garde
cathedral

102

Magnificent
Marseille
A young man in a t-shirt and jeans
exchanges a few words in Arabic
with the middle-aged woman baking
flatbreads over an open flame in the
tiny bakery. She cuts one and gives
him a slice. It’s my second day in
Marseille and, curious, I’ve stopped
to watch.
I’ve seen small neighbourhood
places like this in the Middle East
but did not expect to find one in this
southern French city. The customer
turns to me with a welcoming smile.
“Tourist?” he asks, as he drops a coin
on the counter. He takes a bite of his
bread and walks off down the narrow
street without waiting for a reply.
I’m on the Rue Rodolphe Pollak
in the Noailles area of Marseille,
France’s second largest city (and its
oldest), and its main trade seaport.
The warren of streets is a few
minutes’ walk from Vieux-Port, the
tourist heart of the city. Noailles’s
small open-fronted shops sell
vegetables, meat, cleaning products,
rattan furniture, and, it seems, all the
spices of the Middle East. In addition
to French, languages spoken here
include Arabic and African French.
sssss
By Paul Robert
This bakery the size of a small
kitchen is run by Yasmina Ayab and
her son Mohammed. When I flaunt
a couple of words of Arabic, Yasmina
smiles broadly and invites me to sit
with her. She tells me she is from
Algeria, having come to Marseille
about ten years ago with her
children, to give them a better future.
It’s a familiar story here—one
that tells the story of Marseille itself.
Migration and invasions have shaped
this sunny city on the Mediterranean
ever since Greek merchants landed
here 2,600 years ago, built a harbour,
and mingled with the local Celts.
Later came Romans, Jews, Visigoths,
Burgundians, and Franks.
During the House of Bourbon
dynasty in the 17th and 18th
centuries, the port was transformed
into a ship-building centre. In the
20th century came Armenians, West
Africans, Comorans, and Arabic-
speaking people from North Africa.
It all adds up to one of the most
ethnically diverse cities in Europe.
the Noailles neighboUrhood,
situated a stone’s throw from the
MAY 2023 • 103
MAGNIFICENT MARSEILLE
main commercial artery of La
Canebière, is atmospheric: noisy,
not very clean—and so colourful.
There are graffiti slogans on the
walls and, on a small square that
honours the Greek roots of Marseille
with a fountain dedicated to Homer,
I come across an improvised
monument with eight fading
portraits. It commemorates the
eight people killed in 2018 when
two buildings suddenly collapsed
for lack of maintenance. This is a
neighbourhood with a soul.
And it is very welcoming.
Close to Yasmina Ayab’s bakery I
discover an Algerian restaurant,
Le Fémina, on the Rue du Musée.
“This was established by my great-
grandfather,” the owner, Mustapha
Kachetel, tells me. He points at the
fading black-and-white photos on
the wall. “My great-grandfather, my
grandfather, my father.”
The restaurant has been in this
building since 1921, and Mustapha
celebrated the centennial in 2021
with what he describes as “a huge
couscous festival.” He makes his
signature dish with barley, not
the usual wheat, using a couscous
recipe that hasn’t changed since
back in the 1920s. It originates from
a region in Algeria where his great-
grandfather was born.
“After four generations in France,”
I ask him, “do you feel French,
or Algerian?”. Mustapha doesn’t
hesitate: “Algerian.” But he puts it in
104 • MAY 2023
perspective for me. “Algerian
and French are only nationalities.
I am Marseillais!”.
And, he insists, couscous itself is
actually part of Marseille culture.
Mustapha was a member of the
Algerian delegation that supported
couscous being registered on
Unesco’s Lists of Intangible Cultural
Heritage. The dish was then added
in 2020.
AS WELL AS FRENCH,
LANGUAGES SPOKEN
HERE INCLUDE ARABIC
AND AFRICAN FRENCH
To be honest, before I travelled here,
couscous had not been the first meal
that came to mind when I thought
of Marseille. It was bouillabaisse, the
rich soup with olive oil, garlic, fennel
and saffron that fishermen’s wives
used to make from the catch they
couldn’t sell to restaurants (I was truly
anticipating it; a couple of days earlier
when I was on the train heading to
the south of France from my home
in Amsterdam, a friend texted me a
question. I replied: “I’ll think about
this over a bowl of bouillabaisse”).
I envisioned enjoying it with a pastis
de Marseille—an anise-flavoured
aperitif—at a small portside cafe in
the company of locals who would
be discussing the world in an
incomprehensible dialect.
 The eclectic, arty streets of Le Panier
This was clearly a romantic notion
based on earlier experiences I’d had
in out-of-the-way French villages. I
quickly learned that Marseille was
nothing like those places. For one
thing, there are no small cafes at
historic Vieux-Port.
It is a huge, impressive marina
lined with beautifully restored
buildings, including hotels and
a soap museum (olive oil soap,
along with pastis, is a signature
product of Marseille), alongside
17th-century fortifications built
under Louis XIV. The restaurants
do serve bouillabaisse, but when
photo: ©shutterstoock
I see the price at one place I am
shocked: 69 euros! No bowl of
soup should cost that much, even
if they made it with gold-scaled
fish. I check a neighbouring place:
59 euros.
I give up and end up two streets
away from the old harbour in a new
restaurant, Ourea, that’s popular
with local foodies. For 28 euros, Chef
Matthieu Roche serves a three-course
lunch that includes one of the most
delicious tuna steaks I’ve ever had.
More and more young, talented
people are discovering Marseille is
an ideal place to realise their dreams.
Some, like Roche, are locals, but there
is also a growing number of Parisians
moving here. Those who leave the
capital are choosing Marseille over
anywhere else in France. Tired of
the rush and cost of life in larger
cities, the newcomers—dubbed
“bourgeois bohemians,” or “bobos”
for short—come for the more relaxed
Mediterranean way of life.
“I worked in finance in London,”
says Claire Lombard, the 34-year-old
MAY 2023 • 105
The Mucem museum sits opposite Fort Saint-Jean at the Vieux-Port
co-owner of Maison des Nines, a
small restaurant/shop/gallery on
the edge of Noailles. “I had to leave
England because of Brexit, but I
didn’t want to go home to Paris—
I wanted something different. Here
in Marseille, it is easier to start
something new. You don’t need a
fortune to live, so in the worst case,
you can afford to fail.”
Lombard started Maison des Nines
with two other women. One, Estelle
Billet, 29, worked in marketing and
retail in Paris and now runs the
boutique section of this combined
business, selling items like artisanal
soap, perfume and jewellery. The
three friends also sell vintage clothes.
The bobo invasion has led to the
gradual gentrification of the poorer
neighbourhoods in downtown
Marseille. One is Le Panier, a
village-like area just north of Vieux-
Port with boutiques, restaurants
106 • MAY 2023
and cultural spaces set among old
houses in narrow lanes. Whereas in
Noailles the street art is gritty, in Le
Panier walls display sophisticated
art by various artists, each with their
specific styles.
My tour guide here is Corinne
Ferrand. She has turned her love of
her hometown into her profession,
but I’ve asked her to forget about
tourist highlights as she shows
me around (after all, the Marseille
Cathedral and the splendid Notre-
Dame de la Garde basilica, which
towers over the city from a hilltop, are
easy enough to spot).
As we walk through Le Panier, we
pass a pétanque court, where the local
photo: ©shutterstoock
variant of France’s iconic ball game
boules is played. “The court is run
by the community but it can also be
rented for corporate events,” Ferrand
explains (did I mention the creeping
gentrification here?).
Before heading out of Le Panier
along the Quai de la Joliette, where
ferries head to and from places like
Corsica, Algeria and Tunisia, we turn
from one small street to the next,
enjoying the relaxed atmosphere that
contrasts with the buzz of Noailles.
Walking through these contrasting
neighbourhoods of Marseille—
avoiding, like most locals do, the
crime-ridden districts in the city’s
north—I wonder if the mix of
cultures ever leads to problems. That
evening I ask Fabien Chabord, who
IT IS A HUGE,
IMPRESSIVE MARINA
WITH HOTELS AND
FORTIFICATIONS
owns a bar on Place Jean-Jaurès in a
hipster area up a hill from Noailles.
The bars on the square are filled with
locals of all ethnicities watching the
TV screens; the city’s football team,
Olympique de Marseille (referred
to as OM), is playing Lokomotiv
Moscow. OM is ahead and the mood
is cheerful.
“You can see that the different
groups band together,” says Fabien.
“The later it gets, you sometimes
get tensions; this is a tough town.”
Laughing, he adds: “I always retire at
2am. That is a good time to do so.”
Later, as I walk back through
Noailles to my hotel, I think about
the distinct communities here living
in the same neighbourhoods—
together, side by side, but not mixed.
There are Tunisian bakeries, Algerian
butchers, Armenian grocery stores,
Syrian restaurants, and bobo vintage-
clothing shops. Like Mustapha,
their owners may also feel they are
Marseillais first.
“You’ve seen that very well,” says
Adrien Joly when I bounce this
idea off him the next day. Joly is a
director at the Museum of European
and Mediterranean Civilisations
(Mucem). Established in 2013, it is
France’s biggest national museum
outside of Paris.
It covers anthropology, history,
archaeology and art. Joly takes
me around the playfully displayed
collection that explains the history
of Marseille and its enduring focus
on the Mediterranean world, rather
than on the European continent to
the north.
It is splendid, though locals
were slow to warm to this cultural
newcomer because, as Joly puts
it, anything that comes from the
central government in Paris “is to be
distrusted. But when they see it, they
love it,” he says. “I think Marseille is
now proud of it.”
The museum, like so many
newcomers to this grand old city
over the centuries, has had to work
hard at earning its place in the
people’s hearts. And one day, it too
will be truly Marseillais. Q
MAY 2023 • 107
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 TR AVEL & ADVENTURE

My Great Escape:

Bewitching
Banff
Our reader Leah Rottier
explores the Rocky
Mountains of Canada’s
“Bear Country”

T
he impossibly cold air
hit us the minute we
walked out of the terminal
at Calgary Airport in
December, but the sky was
bright and it stayed that way for the
two-hour drive to Banff. Highway
1 led us out of the city towards the
Rocky Mountains—a long, open road
with breathtaking scenery. As we
reached Kananaskis, a sign warned
us we were entering “Bear Country”,
but we wouldn’t be lucky enough to
spot any hibernating creatures on nonchalantly alongside tourists and
this trip. locals alike.
The roads through the Rockies Our hotel was perfectly situated
were dotted with bighorn sheep for exploring the Rockies and we
and mountain goats, but the best spent an entire day around Sulphur
of the wildlife was to be found in Mountain, a colossal mountain over
the centre of Banff. While walking 8,000 feet high, famous for its hot
through the town, deer literally springs. The Banff Gondola took
popped up everywhere and danced us right to the top of the mountain

110 • MAY 2023


where we took in the magnificent
vista. The sheer magnitude of the
forests and enormous mountains
left us in awe of the space and the
silence, with the country plaques at
the top of the mountain reminding
us just how far we were from home.
Driving back to the hotel, we
spotted a frozen lake and tents
which hardy locals were using for ice
fishing, seemingly unbothered by the
freezing conditions. During our stay,
we came across similar scenes on a
few frozen lakes, so it seems to be
popular here!
The last day of our trip was
spent hiking around Lake Louise—
astonishingly beautiful scenery
where emerald waters reflected the
surrounding snowy mountains and
the majestic Fairmont hotel perched
on the edge of the lake.
It was hard to leave such a magical
winter wonderland and exchange
the fresh snow and delicious maple
syrup pancakes for a rainy arrival
back home! Q
Tell us about your favourite holiday (send
a photo too) and if we print it, we’ll pay
£50. Email excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk
MAY 2023 • 111
HIDDEN
GEMS
PALACE OF
PURIFICATION
Toronto

W
ater treatment plants rarely feature on travel
itineraries—but an exception should be made in Toronto.
That’s because its RC Harris Water Treatment
Plant, widely known as the “Palace of Purification”, is
unexpectedly beautiful. Operational since 1941, this large building
beside Lake Ontario blends art deco style with a dramatic, temple-like
sprawl. Things are elegant inside, too, as marble walkways connect
cavernous halls.
No wonder, then, that the landmark plant has featured on Canadian
stamps and boasts many on-screen cameos, often in portrayal of
an asylum, a prison or a bad guy’s base. Those credits include two
Guillermo del Toro horrors, Mimic and Nightmare Alley, plus the
RoboCop TV series and two cult stoner comedy films, Half Baked and
Strange Brew. Its construction also underpins Michael Ondaatje’s
novel, In the Skin of a Lion, which introduces the characters of Hana
and Caravaggio ahead of The English Patient.
Named after Roland Caldwell Harris, a long-standing Commissioner
of Public Works for Toronto, the plant was deliberately designed with
the intention to impress—unlike most other public-serving edifices
of the time. Pumping in gallons from Ontario, the world’s 13th-largest
lake by surface area, it continues to supply a large percentage of the
city’s water supply today.
Inside entry is only possible amid occasional free, guided tours—
with the best bet being late May’s annual Doors Open Toronto event
(try eventbrite.ca). It’s always possible, however, to walk around
the Palace’s lawned, bird-rich grounds, which slope down to the
lakeside. Find them in The Beaches, a relaxed and popular eastern
neighbourhood of Toronto. Q

By Richard Mellor
113
 MONEY

Minted
MAJESTY
What does the coronation mean for the UK’s
currency depicting the monarchs—old and new?

114

W
hen Queen
Elizabeth II died,
my 11-year-old
niece was concerned
it would mean
money was worthless as you
wouldn’t be able to use the coins and
notes that featured her face. That is,
of course, not the case.
All the current coins and notes
which feature Queen Elizabeth II will
continue to be legal tender, even
though there’s a new monarch on the
throne. And they’ll remain so until
they need to be replaced.
Which could take a while—there
are currently around 27 billion coins
with the Queen’s face on one side in
use in the UK. Though there have
been wholesale replacements of
coins in the past, such as through
decimalisation in the 1970s, the
resizing of 5p, 10p and 50p coins in
the 1990s, and the new £1 coin in
2017, this was quite unusual.
Normally, old coins only stop
being used when wear and tear take
them out of circulation, and
LEO NORA O AT ES / ALA MY STO CK P HOTO
Buckingham Palace is keen to avoid
any unnecessary environmental and
financial impacts by changing this.
Andy Webb is a
personal finance
journalist and runs
the award-winning
money blog, Be
Clever With Your Cash
READER’S DIGEST
That doesn’t mean we won’t find
King Charles III’s face in our wallets
already. In fact, 50p coins with the
King appeared at the end of last year.
And all new coins minted since
January 1, 2023 have featured King
Charles on them.
But expect to continue to use coins
with both the Queen and King for a
good while yet. According to the
Royal Mint, it’s only since 1992 that
every coin featured the same
reigning monarch. Previously you’d
find a hotch potch of monarchs’
faces on coins, stretching back to
medieval times.
If you find a new coin in your
change, the first thing you’ll probably
notice is the absence of a crown on
King Charles’ head. It might seem
strange but there’s precedent with
King George VI (Elizabeth’s father)
and other kings (also crownless).
Another difference in the new
coins the King faces left, while the
Queen faced right—also following a
tradition that alternates the direction
of profiles between monarchs.
Some have said that the design, by
sculptor Martin Jennings, features a
hidden bird next to the King’s ear.
Whether it’s an unintended extra or
deliberate, once you see it, you can’t
unsee it!
You’ll have to wait until next year
to see King Charles on a banknote,
with mid-2024 likely to see the first
release. The longer transition is
because there are a number of
MAY 2023 • 115
MONEY
banknotes with the portrait of the
Queen already printed by the Bank
of England but not circulated. The
idea is to use these ones first, and
print the new versions only when
they’re needed.
The back designs will all stay the
same as they are now, with Winston
Churchill on the £5 note, Jane Austen
on the £10 note, JMW Turner on the
£20 and Alan Turing on the £50. The
difference will be on the front and in
the see-through security window,
with King Charles (crownless again)
replacing the picture of the Queen.
Surprisingly, this is only the second
time a monarch has been on a Bank
of England UK banknote. It wasn’t
until 1960 that Queen Elizabeth
became the first one to feature.
116 • MAY 2023
Worldwide it’s less clear if King
Charles will replace the Queen
on current and former
Commonwealth currencies. In
Canada the Queen appears on the
$20 note, on coins in New Zealand,
and others include some Cypriot and
Eastern Caribbean Central Bank
cash. Over in Australia, it’s likely the
King will appear on coins, but it’s
been announced that the $5 note will
REU TE RS / ALAMY STO CK P HOTO
instead “honour the culture and
history of the first Australians”.
What to do with old coins
and notes?
Of course, even though you’ll be able
to keep using the current currency
featuring the Queen, we have seen
 READER’S DIGEST

some changes in recent years where Don’t forget to swap

that isn’t the case.
The move from paper to polymer
notes is now complete, so you can’t
spend the older notes. Last
September it was the old £20 and £50
notes that were withdrawn, with the
£5 and £10 notes removed in 2017
and 2018 respectively.
If you find one of these old notes,
don’t chuck them in the bin, as they
still have value. To make them
useable you’ll need to swap them for
the new style notes (with either the
Queen or King), which you can do by
sending them in the post to the Bank
of England. You can also change
them in person at participating Post
Office branches, or the Bank of
England itself if you happen to be
near Threadneedle Street in London.
The only recent coin you might
still have that can’t be used is the
round pound coin. It’s easier to swap
this over as you can deposit it into
your current account at your bank.
your stamps
The King’s portrait will appear on
stamps issued by Royal Mail from
April 4, 2023, though, as with cash,
you can continue to use those with a
picture of the Queen—with one
major exception.
Last year new style stamps were
issued which feature a barcode, and
these are now officially the only
traditional stamps you can use as of
January 31, with the notable
exception of either Christmas or
picture stamps.
However, there’s a six-month grace
period lasting until July 31, 2023,
where post with the old stamps will
still be accepted.
You can either use them before
that date, or send them by post to
the Royal Mail Swap Out service.
You’ll be able to find the form on
the Royal Mail website or from local
Post Offices. Q

May Day

The origins of May Day come from a mix of Beltane, the Celtic day celebrating
the return of life, and the Roman festival Floralia, worshipping a flower goddess

Although the source of the maypole tradition is unknown, it can be traced back
to medieval times and is still used in May Day festivities in some places today
Today, May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and is unofficially recognised
or celebrated in many more, all over the world

MAY 2023 • 117

PARTNERSHIP PROMOTION

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 PET CORNER
Coronation Parties With Pets
How to consider your furry friends when holding
street parties and celebrations
ith the King’s
W Coronation
upon us,
many of us will
be looking to hold
street parties and celebrate with
neighbours, friends and family.
Charity Blue Cross is urging dog
owners to consider their four-legged
friends to ensure the day is as safe
and stress-free as possible for our
pets. Here’s what to consider to keep
your dog happy on the day:
Will your dog cope with the
celebrations on the day?
Some puppies and dogs may find a
celebration or street party stressful
and overwhelming, with lots of
people, children, music, noise, and
possibly other dogs around. You may
want to consider leaving your dog at
home. If you’re leaving your dog at
home consider:
• Where your dog is going
to be left.
• Ensure they have a cosy,
quiet area that makes
them feel safe and secure,
with toys and treats.
120 • MAY 2023
If you’re having people inside your
home or in your garden for a
party, then ensure your dog has a
safe place to go to if they want to
have some quiet time on their own.
Food
Keep a close eye on your pet as there
will be food and drink around, and
people may be holding barbecues.
Don’t be tempted to give your pet
tasty treats from the barbecue. Many
human foods are best avoided by pets
and alcohol is a definite no-no. Make
sure to ask guests not to leave food,
skewers or hot cooking utensils
within your pet’s reach.
Glass
Glasses can be easily broken on the
day so make sure that any breakages
are cleared up quickly, or consider
using plastic cups and glasses
during your party instead.
Safety
By British law
your dogs
should be
microchipped and your personal
details up to date on the database.
They should also be wearing a collar
in a public place with your contact
details on.
If your pet should run off during
the celebrations, they are far more
likely to be returned home safely if
these details are all up to date.
Fireworks
People may look to set off fireworks
around the event, which can be
stressful for our pets. Do not take
your pet to an event if you know
fireworks will be set off.
At home, be sure that your pet has
a safe place to go and hide if needed,
and also look to have the TV or radio
READER’S DIGEST’S PET OF THE MONTH
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petphotos@readersdigest.co.uk
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spend at Pet Planet
Enter our monthly Pet of the Month contest at the email above
on and the curtains or blinds closed
to help your pet stay as calm as
possible during the celebrations.
If you’re planning to let off
fireworks yourself during your
Coronation celebrations then let
your neighbours know in advance, so
they can take measures to protect
their pets.
Decorations
Decorations can cause injuries or
stomach blockages if chewed or
swallowed by your pet. Hang
decorations up high, out of the reach
of pets and keep an eye on them
throughout the day. Q
For more expert pet advice visit
Lucky
Age: Four years
Breed: Moggy
Owner: Sally Collingwood
Fun Fact: He had to sit on the
naughty step because he chewed
through the washing machine hose
and flooded the kitchen
MAY 2023 • 121
 HOME & GARDEN
Growing Responsibly
Growing plants is often seen as a very “green” thing to do, but like
many products they take a huge amount of energy to produce,
explains Tony Le-Britton, author of Not Another Jungle
M
any large-scale
growers have
implemented
technology and growing
techniques to minimise
their impact on the environment,
such as using geothermal energy
to heat greenhouses, solar power
to supply electricity and lighting,
and even harvesting rainwater from
the expansive glass roofs of their
greenhouses. This water can be
circulated and reused, minimising
the amount of wastewater and
avoiding taking water from the grid.
There is an incentive here, too, as
waste in commercial growing equals
less profit, so many of the systems
in place are extremely economically
and environmentally efficient.
What can we do?
While domestic growing doesn’t
involve the same carbon footprint as
commercial growing, it’s important
to consider what we can all do to
minimise our own impact while still
enjoying growing plants.
Overconsumption of plants is a big
issue. It’s so easy to get overexcited
122 • MAY 2023
when you see all these incredible
plants, and you can end up carrying
home huge numbers of them. But
large collections are an enormous
amount of work; the more plants you
have, the more limited your time and
resources become, and plants can
suffer. This leads to another issue—
many people give up and throw away
their plants, and in a similar way to
the world of fast fashion, the low
price of some plants means that if it
doesn’t look perfect—or in the case
of orchids or other flowering plants—
stops flowering, it’s not such a
wrench to just chuck them away and
replace them.
It’s important to value your
plants—buy plants you know you
have time to look after, regularly
assess your collection, and rehome
rather than throw away things that
don’t bring you joy or fit into your
growing conditions. In my shop, I
have a zero plant-waste policy; any
plants not looking their best are sold
at a discount with the necessary
advice to perk them up, or I’ll take
them home and do it myself.
If you are ready and able to
increase your collection, propagate
 from your own plants rather than
buying more, and share plants with
others. I’ve got a wall in my shop
where people can swap cuttings.
This removes the need to buy plants
and encourages a sharing and
propagation culture, while also
building a community of like-
minded, passionate plant people.
I really recommend finding or even
starting a group where you can get
swapping plants.

Make considerate adaptations

Try to use substrates that are the

least environmentally damaging and
reuse when repotting. Unless the
plant potted in it was diseased, just
mix in fresh ingredients to add
structure, nutrition and life to
existing substrate instead of throwing lower quality that needs replacing
it out. Many traditional substrates every year. The same goes for pots;
and additives have a huge so many pots and trays are made
environmental cost and aren’t from flimsy plastic which lasts a
sustainable, so reusing these will season, and most can’t even be
greatly reduce your gardening recycled. Much better to invest in
footprint on the environment. some really sturdy plastic pots which
Recycling takes a huge amount of will last a lifetime. I propagate and
DO RLING K INDERS LEY: J ASON INGRAM

input, which can end up more then grow many of the plants for
damaging to the environment, so buy my shop on windowsills at home,
fewer things of a higher quality. with no
These will last many years and additional light
reduce your impact on the or heat needed. Q
environment and be more cost-
effective in the long term. Good- Not Another Jungle
quality tools last a lifetime and can by Tony Le-Britton
be passed down the generations is available now
rather than buying something of (DK, £16.99)

MAY 2023 • 123

 COMPETITIONS

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Can you find all these words relating to Spring in our
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124
 If I pass away
Canine Cared For
are home
If I move to a c
Canine Cared For

e a li fe - c h a n ging diagnosis
If I receiv
Canine Cared For

Make sure your dog is cared

for with a Canine Care Card
:4%;<73-7.5<1:6;<-078<.:4</76<8:<*9:8;/8<.:49<,:49<
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76' ;)258;9;1</07928.<64+&;95<###<<" 
 Victoria Sponge
with Orange,
Rose and Hibiscus
For The
Bake Off star Crystelle
Pereira shares her recipe for
a delicious Victoria Sponge
with a twist
Make the Sponge
1. Preheat the oven to 160°C fan.
2. Whisk together flour, baking
powder and salt, and set aside.
3. In a bowl, combine sugar with the
orange zest and rub with your
hands to release the oils from
the zest.
4. Cream together butter and the
orange sugar until light and fluffy.
An electric whisk or stand
attachment works best for this,
beating for around 7-10 minutes.
5. Add in vanilla and eggs, one by
one, and mix until smooth.
6. In a measuring jug, add milk and
oil and whisk together.
7. Sieve the flour mixture into the wet
Recipes For ingredients, alternating with the
milk/oil mixture, folding carefully
The Coronation with a spatula in between each
addition, until no streaks remain.
Celebrate the coronation 8. Fill 2 lined 8-inch tins with the cake
batter and bake these in the oven at
of King Charles with some 160°C for 25-30 mins, until springy
home baking for your party and a skewer comes out clean.
9. Leave the cakes to cool completely
before you assemble.

126 • MAY 2023

Make the Jam: Ingredients:
• Combine the water Orange Sponge:
and hibiscus in a • 340g self-raising flour
saucepan and heat • 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
this for about 20-
• Zest of 2 oranges
25 minutes until
• 230g unsalted butter,
the liquid has room temperature
reduced (about ¼ • 340g caster sugar
cup of liquid should • 2 tbsp vanilla bean paste
remain) and is a dark • 2 tsp orange blossom (if
purple colour. you don't have this, add the
• Pour the liquid through a sieve and discard the zest of 1 more orange)
hibiscus flowers. • 4 large eggs,
• In a large pan, combine the hibiscus liquid, room temperature
• 230g room temperature
lime juice, sugar and strawberries and mix well
whole milk (can replace
to combine.
with dairy-free milk)
• Place the pan on a low heat and stir until the • 60g olive oil
sugar has dissolved.
• At this point, take a potato masher and mash Strawberry and Hibiscus Jam
the strawberries. (feel free to simply use store-
• Increase heat, and bring the jam mixture to a bought jam):
rolling boil. Continue to boil for about 10-15 • 1 cup dried hibiscus
minutes, stirring constantly, until the mixture flowers, 30g
reaches 105°C and is thick. • 1 cup water
• 375g strawberries
• Take this off the heat and transfer to a cool dish.
• 200g jam sugar
• Juice of half a lime
Make the whipped cream:
• In a cold bowl, combine all the ingredients Whipped Cream:
for the whipped cream and whip using a whisk • I x 300ml tub double cream
until you have almost stiff peaks (make sure not • 1tbsp vanilla bean paste
to overwhisk). • 1 capful rosewater
• Squeeze of honey
To assemble, making sure the jam and the cakes • Icing sugar for dusting
are cold to the touch, place one cake layer on a
board/cake stand, flat side facing up. Spread over
a thick layer of jam, followed by the whipped
cream, flattening it out with an offset spatula.
Place the final cake layer on the top and dust with
icing sugar.
R E C I P E S F O R T H E C O R O N AT I O N

Torta Pasqualina
(Easter Pie)
Torta pasqualina is a timeless
classic from Liguria; some claim
that the recipe dates back as far as
the 15th century. It's traditionally
baked for Easter, hence the name,
and it's packed with symbolic
religious references. Here, Bake
Off winner Giuseppe Dell'Anno
introduces his simplified version

Make the Pastry

1. Place the flour in a large bowl, add
the salt and make a well in the
centre. Pour oil and water into the
well, then start mixing with a spoon
to incorporate the flour gradually.
When the ingredients have roughly
come together, turn the mixture
onto a clean and dry worktop and
knead briefly until the dough is
smooth and homogeneous. Divide
the dough into four quarters and
form them into balls. Cover with a
clean tea towel and leave them at
room temperature to rest for no
less than 30 minutes.
Make the Filling
2. Place the ricotta in a sieve over a
bowl to drain any excess water, and
set aside for later.
3. Slice the onion thinly and chop the
chard roughly; place both in a
large pan, add 2 tablespoons of
water, cover with a lid, and place
over moderate heat. Cook until the
chards are completely wilted,
stirring occasionally. Take off the
heat, turn the vegetables into a
colander, and leave them to drain
off any excess liquid while cooling.
4. In the meantime, beat two of the
eggs in a large bowl (large enough
to accommodate the entire filling)
and save 2 tablespoons of beaten
eggs for later. Add the drained
ricotta, salt, pepper, nutmeg and
parmesan to the same bowl and
mix well with a fork, until creamy
and well combined. Drain any
remaining liquid off the chards by

128 • MAY 2023

 taking small handfuls
of the cooked
vegetables and
squeezing them in
your fist. Drop the
Serves up to 10
squeezed vegetables (for a 23cm springform tin)
into the ricotta
mixture and Ingredients:
incorporate them well For the pastry:
with a fork. • 400g plain flour, plus extra
for dusting
Assemble and Bake • 1 tsp salt
5. Place the shelf in the lowest position in the oven • 100g extra virgin olive oil,
plus extra for greasing
and preheat it to 180°C static. Oil the tin and line
• 180g cold water
the bottom with a disc of baking paper.
6. Roll each ball of dough to a 2mm-thick disc over For the filling
a well-floured surface. Fit the first disc of pastry • 250g ricotta
snugly into the tin, letting the extra pastry hang • 1 small onion
off the sides, then lay the second disc of pastry • 800g fresh chard, washed
over the first. Spoon the filling in and level it off and drained
with the back of a spoon. Create three deep • 2 tbsp water
indentations in the filling, each as large as an • 5 medium eggs
egg, then crack one egg in each depression. Lay • 1/8 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp ground black pepper
the third disc of pastry over the filling, and finally
• ¼ tsp nutmeg
lay the fourth and last disc of pastry. Trim off the
• 60g grated parmesan
excess pastry by running the back of a knife
along the edges of the tin, then pinch the edges
of the pastry against the rim of the tin to seal
them. Brush the top of the pie with the beaten
egg saved earlier and pierce a few vents in the
top layer of pastry with the tip of a knife.
7. Bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes, or until the top Made possible by The
of the pie is of a deep golden colour and the National Lottery, the
edges are starting to brown. Leave the pie to cool Coronation Big Lunch
in the tin for at least 15 minutes before removing brings communities
the sides and transferring to a serving plate. together to share
Serve at room temperature. Torta pasqualina friendship, food and
keeps in the fridge for up to three days and it can fun. Find out more at
be frozen pre-sliced into individual portions. CoronationBigLunch.com

MAY 2023 • 129

 WIN A
Don’t forget to enter our £400
VOU C HER

BEAUTIFUL
B RITAI N
How To Enter
Photo Competition Take a high-resolution photo with
either a phone or digital camera
What encapsulates
Ensure that pictures are original,
the beauty of Britain not previously published and taken
specifically for this competition
for you?
Email your photos to
photocomps@readersdigest.co.uk
The competition will be judged by by 5pm, May 12, 2023
professional photographer James
Eckersley, and the winning entries will Make sure you include your
be published in our July issue, with the full name, location and
top winner gracing the back cover. contact number

For more details, tips and guides visit

readersdigest.co.uk/inspire/photo-competition
You must own the rights to the photograph you submit for entry. You must be able to supply a high-resolution copy of the
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 COMPETITIONS

WIN!
WIN a gourmet hamper A gourmet
hamper
worth £200
We have a scrumptious £200 hamper filled with dreamy
delights such as jams, chutneys, honey, marmalade
and much more from the wonderful Medlar Preserves.
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COMPLETE THE CROSSWORD FOR YOUR CHANCE TO WIN!

ACROSS
2 South African political party (1,1,1)
6 5 Video receivers (3)
6 Dangerous colour (3)
7 Loft (5)
10 Thin fluffy scarf (3)
11 Spike of corn (3)
12 Spoil (3)

9 DOWN
1 Source of ready money (1,1,1)
11
2 Collaboratively (2,1,4)
3 Naval vessel (7)
4 Military assistant (1-1-1)
8 Imperial weights (3)
9 Not against (3)

MAY 2023 • 131

 TH E
ON F TH
M O
LM
FI
++++
THE EIGHT MOUNTAINS
A
n engrossing study of a
lifelong male friendship,
one that’s at times rockier
than its Alpine setting, The
Eight Mountains is the latest film
from Belgian filmmaker Felix van
Groeningen. Like his earlier films
The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012)
and Beautiful Boy (2018), which
starred Steve Carell and Timothée
Chalamet as father and son, this
wears its heart on its sleeve.
Adapted from Paolo Cognetti’s
award-winning 2016 novel, Le Otto
Montagne, it begins in the 1980s
when two boys—city kid Pietro
(Lupo Barbiero) and local lad
Bruno (Cristiano Sassella)—become
friends in a (fictional) village in
the Italian Alps. Van Groeningen
(who co-directs here with his
132 • MAY 2023
real-life partner, the actor Charlotte
Vandermeersch) elegantly captures
the indelible bonds formed in
childhood, despite the two boys’
very different backgrounds.
But this film truly takes flight
when the story moves on into
adulthood, and Pietro (played as a
grown-up by Luca Marinelli), now
a writer, and Bruno (Alessandro
Borghi) are reunited after years
apart, with the disparities between
them now yawning like a crevasse.
A Cannes Film Festival Jury
Prize-winner, The Eight Mountains
scales its emotional peaks and
troughs with consummate skill and
deliberation. The vertiginous rugged
backdrops, staggeringly shot, will
doubtlessly cause you to catch your
breath, too.
REA DER SDIGES T.C O.UK/ C ULT URE

ALSO OUT THIS MONTH
+++
THE UNLIKELY PILGRIMAGE
OF HAROLD FRY
J
im Broadbent takes the title
role in this well-meaning
drama about a retiree who
decides to find meaning in
his life. Adapted by Rachel Joyce
from her own novel, the story starts
when Harold receives a letter from a
hospice in Berwick-Upon-Tweed. A
former colleague and friend Queenie
is dying of cancer. Try as he might,
Harold can’t find the right words in
his reply, but as he goes to post his
letter, he has an epiphany, deciding
to walk the 500-odd miles from
South Devon to see Queenie, an
act of faith he believes will keep
her living.
While Harold finds kindness on
the road, from doctors to dogs, it’s
FILM
a trip that does not sit well with his
wife Maureen (Penelope Wilton),
especially with unresolved grief
in their past. Directed by Hettie
Macdonald (Normal People), it’s a
film of simple pleasures, not least
showing the lush highways and
byways of England. Broadbent, age
and emotion etched on his face, is a
dependable presence, while Wilton
does tremendously in a difficult
role. There are flaws—the flashbacks
are poorly handled, and some of
Harold’s pitstops test credulity—but
this quasi-spiritual pilgrimage has
a good heart, showing a great belief
in humanity.
By James Mottram
MAY 2023 • 133
 TELEVISION
We Need to Talk About
Cosby (iPlayer) is a fine
example of television
wrestling with itself. Over
four hour-long parts,
filmmaker W Kamau Bell
discusses the tarnished legacy
of Bill Cosby—TV figurehead and
convicted sex offender (overturned
on appeal)—with colleagues,
academics and those in Cosby’s
orbit. Some methodically unpick the
art from the artist; others highlight
moments in the stand-up and sitcoms
where the mask seemed to slip, and
question why nobody cared to notice.
Crucially, the survivors introduce
their own testimony. There’ll be a
fair bit of this in 2023, with the BBC’s
Jimmy Savile drama The Reckoning
set for the autumn. If Bell’s show
prompts mixed emotions, well, that’s
likely the point: Cosby brought joy to
millions, while causing intolerable—
indeed, belatedly actionable—pain
to hundreds more. There’s much to
talk about.
There’s a lot of trial-by-television
this month, although Jury Duty
134 • MAY 2023
(Amazon Freevee)—a
clever hybrid of
character comedy
and hidden-cam
prankery from those
behind Borat and the
US The Office—isn’t what
it first appears. Notionally, we’re
watching highlights of a three-week
civil case filed against a worker
accused of singlehandedly bringing
down a printing company. The twist:
everyone involved is an actor, bar
Juror number six, sunny solar panel
engineer Ronald Gladden, whose
reactions to this three-ring legal circus
are wholly unrehearsed. A potentially
cruel gotcha instead proves altogether
genial entertainment: Gladden gets
new playmates, acting lessons from
fellow juror James Marsden (playing
a preening variation of himself), and
to lead the jury like Hank Fonda in 12
Angry Men. “We all fell in love with
you,” confesses one of his co-stars
after the big reveal. You might be
swayed, too.
by Mike McCahill
Retro Pick:
Crown Court (Talking Pictures TV)
Relive school sick days—while spotting
the young Richard Wilson, Brian Cox
and Ben Kingsley—with this longtime
staple of ITV’s lunchtime programming.
 MUSIC
King Charles’s
Favourite Song
H
is Royal Majesty is a
famously ardent supporter
of music—he counts among
his patronages the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal
College of Music and the English
Chamber Orchestra—and his eclectic
taste is set to make a centrepiece in
his coronation ceremony. Viewers
can expect to hear compositions
from Baron Lloyd Webber, Patrick
Doyle, Shirley J Thompson, and more, song, telling BBC Radio 3, “I find
all personally handpicked by King
Charles III himself.
If you’re compiling your own
coronation playlist at home, there’s
plenty to go on. When King Charles
curated a collection of his top songs
for the NHS in 2021, he revealed an
impressively diverse list of favourites. DJ at weddings—he made sure that
Edith Piaf’s devastatingly romantic
“La Vie en Rose” appears next to
Eighties icons Barbara Streisand
(“Don’t Rain On My Parade”) and
Diana Ross (“Upside Down”). But
PA IM AG ES / AL AMY S TOCK PH OTO
it’s the deliciously funky “Givin’
Up Givin’ In” by disco trio The
Three Degrees that gives HRH “an
irresistible urge to get up and dance”.
Leonard Cohen is another favourite bits of music that put a spring in your
for the contemplative king. “He’s
remarkable. The orchestration is
fantastic and the words, the lyrics
and everything,” he told his sons
Prince Charles conducts the orchestra of
the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden
in a television interview—“Is he a
jazz player?” was William’s response
(honestly, Will). HRH later chose
“Take This Waltz” as his top Cohen
it very moving. The words are so
extraordinary, sort of Salvador
Dalí-like.”
No King Charles playlist would be
complete without a nod to his love for
classical. On Classic FM, he shared
how much he enjoys being a classical
Sir Hubert Parry’s “I Was Glad” made
it into Will and Kate’s setlist. One of
his favourite compositions, though,
is an impressively obscure opera,
Jean-Marie Leclair’s Scylla et Glaucus,
about the doomed love between a
nymph and a sea god. “Whenever
I hear it, it always makes me feel
better,” he said. “Do you know those
step again when you’re feeling a little
bit down?”.
By Becca Inglis
MAY 2023 • 135
 BOOKS

May Fiction
One of the world’s biggest film stars turns his
considerable talents to a debut novel about film-making

The Making of Another Major

Motion Picture Masterpiece
by Tom Hanks
Hutchinson Heinemann, £22

lancing at the title and

G author’s name here, you

might think you know
exactly what you’re in
for: a horse’s-mouth
guide to how movies are made. As
it turns out, however, you’d only
be half-right. Tom Hanks’s debut
novel certainly delivers plenty of
memorable trade secrets. Among
much else, we learn that URST
stands for the trusty plot device of
“unresolved sexual tension”; and
that film-shooting always begins on
a Wednesday, giving everybody three
days to prove themselves before
those who don’t are sacked over the
James Walton is a
book reviewer and
broadcaster, and has
written and presented
17 series of the BBC
Radio 4 literary quiz
The Write Stuff
weekend. But there’s also far more to
the book than that.
For the first 80-odd pages, in fact,
films are barely mentioned. Instead, we
get a rather good portrait of late-1940s,
small-town California where four-year-
old Robby is already showing signs of
artistic talent. His mother’s brother
then shows up on a motorbike trying
hard to be a fond uncle, but clearly
traumatised by his wartime
experiences. And from there we cut to
Robby’s time as a Sixties hippy who
transforms his uncle’s sad story into an
underground comic book.
Eventually, Hanks does arrive in
present-day Hollywood where a
seasoned director is using Robby’s
book to give a big franchise film more
depth than usual. But even then, the

136 • MAY 2023

novel pauses for quite a while to
provide generous backstories for the
cast and crew.
Through all this, Hanks’s storytelling
is surprisingly accomplished. But it also
feels, if anything, a little over-generous,
as yet another make-up artist or extra is
given extended narrative attention.
Happily, any patience we’re required to
show is amply rewarded—because
once he moves on to what I suspect
most of us are really after, Hanks is able
to root his insider’s guide to film-
making in thoroughly realised
characters we’ve come to know, and
generally to like.
With, that is, one big exception. In a
mostly good-natured book, he has lots
of mean fun with the astonishing
narcissism of the leading man O K
Bailey. And of course, given Hanks’s
admission that every character here
“does something I’ve experienced
while making a movie”, guessing who
might have inspired Bailey is fun too. Q
Name the character
Can you guess the fictional character
from these clues (and, of course, the
fewer you need the better)?
1. Her creator’s first names were
Pamela Lyndon.
2. She has a friend called Bert.
3. Julie Andrews won an Oscar for
playing her.
Answer on p142
Paperbacks
Colditz: Prisoners of the Castle
by Ben Macintyre (Penguin,
£10.99). The author of SAS: Rogue
Heroes with a riveting and often
myth-busting account of surely the
most famous prisoner-of-war camp
of them all.
The Satsuma Complex by Bob
Mortimer (Gallery UK, £8.99). A
fine first novel from a strong
candidate for national treasuredom.
As funny and slightly weird as you’d
expect, but with a strong crime story
as well.
Frontline Midwife by Anna Kent
(Bloomsbury, £9.99). Powerful
memoir of delivering babies for
vulnerable women both in war zones
and in Britain.
Sun Damage by Sabine Durrant
(Hodder, £8.99). Durrant confirms
her status as one of Britain’s best
thriller writers in a novel that
combines sharp observations of
family life with a brilliantly
constructed plot.
A Spotter’s Guide to the
Countryside by John Wright
(Profile, £12.99). Witty, informative
and beautifully illustrated guide to
the more curious sights on offer in
rural Britain.
MAY 2023 • 137
BOOKS

RECOMMENDED READ:

From Kid To King

A veteran royal correspondent examines the incredible—and
sometimes challenging—journey of King Charles III’s life

s a royal correspondent

A for 33 years, and the man

who broke the news of
Charles and Camilla’s
engagement, Robert
Jobson is well-placed to provide this
timely biography of our soon-to-be-
crowned monarch. Sure enough, his
new book—fully updated from an
earlier one—is an absorbing, highly
informed account of Charles’s life
from birth (when his father described
him as looking just like “a plum
pudding”) to the past few months,
when we’ve all had to get used to
singing “God Save the King”.
What makes it particularly good,
though, is how reliable it feels.
Jobson clearly writes from a position
of sympathy for Charles. But that
doesn’t mean he sidesteps the more
difficult elements of the story.
The King’s childhood, for example,
certainly wasn’t easy. His parents
brought him up according to the
upper class methods of the time,
ie, they didn’t see him much. His
famously grim days at Gordonstoun
school were alleviated only by regular
visits to his doting granny, the Queen
Mother, in nearby Balmoral.
The slow-motion disaster of the
marriage to Diana duly makes for
especially painful reading, with both
parties spending the days before their
“fairytale wedding” wishing there
was some way to call it off. More
recently, there’s been the rupture
with Harry—where, again, Jobson
largely shares Charles’s perspective
without glossing over his mistakes.
Overall, the King comes across as
a fundamentally decent man, who
even in the toughest of circumstances
has tried to do his best. There seems
no doubt either that his relationship

138 • MAY 2023


with Prince Philip grew increasingly
warm in later life—and that his love
and admiration for his mother the
Queen never wavered, as we saw in
the summer of 2022…
“
The celebrations to honour
the monarch for her Platinum
Jubilee culminated in a four-day
bank holiday weekend on June
2-5. It included everything from
street parties across the country
to Trooping the Colour and a star-
studded concert led by Diana Ross,
as well as a final balcony appearance
by the Queen herself. But she was not
strong enough to make them all.
Charles paid tribute to his mother
at the BBC’s Platinum Party at the
Palace, where he began his address,
‘Your Majesty, Mummy’. Thanking
her for a ‘lifetime of selfless service’,
he told her during the televised
concert, ‘You continue to make
history’. Referring to the Queen’s
absence from the celebrations, after
she was said to have experienced
Charles: Our
King: The
Man and the
Monarch by
Robert Jobson
is published
by John Blake
at £22
READER’S DIGEST
‘some discomfort’ during Trooping
the Colour two days earlier, he said,
‘We might have been celebrating
that Derby winner this evening…
next year perhaps?’ Then, addressing
the crowd, he added, ‘But I know
what really gets my mother up in the
morning is all of you—watching at
home. Represented here tonight in
this great audience’.
Behind the scenes, the Queen had
been feeling very frail. Her doctors
said the earlier appearances on
Thursday, when she took the salute
and watched the fly-past during the
Trooping the Colour ceremony, and
her second appearance later that
day as she triggered the lighting
of the principal Jubilee beacon at
Windsor Castle, had taken their toll.
Her Majesty had previously filmed
the highly acclaimed TV sketch of
a computer-generated Paddington
Bear taking afternoon tea with her
and thanking her ‘for everything’.
Charles felt it was imperative, for
history, that the Queen acknowledge
the crowds with a wave from the
Buckingham Palace balcony at the
end of the jubilee celebrations. He
implored her to make the appearance
and a military-style exercise was
put in place to ensure—on her
insistence—that she made it without
being seen in public or by the press
in the wheelchair she had to use.
Ever the stalwart, and in
considerable discomfort, Her Majesty
was taken by wheelchair to the
MAY 2023 • 139
BOOKS
helicopter pad at Windsor and, after
it landed at the palace, taken again
by wheelchair right to the balcony
door, before being helped to her feet
so that she could stand alongside the
other royals. It took real strength and
courage for her to do so. She wore an
emerald double crepe wool dress and
coat, adorned with the Bow Brooch,
finished off with a hat with a black
pompom, pearl jewellery and white
gloves, so that she could be seen by
the cheering crowd.
Bravely holding on to her walking
stick, the Queen stood on the balcony
alongside Charles and Prince George,
flanked by William and Catherine,
Charlotte, Louis and Camilla. After
the family and the flag-waving crowd
packed along The Mall sang ‘God
Save the Queen’ enthusiastically,
and a display of red, white and blue
fireworks was launched from the
Victoria Memorial, Queen Elizabeth
II smiled with delight.
It was to be her final salute to
her people.
”
Answer to Name
the Character:
Mary Poppins in the
books by PL Travers (who
changed her name from
Helen Lyndon Goff).
Travers originally objected
to the casting of Julie
Andrews, considering her
too attractive.
140 • MAY 2023
Robert Jobson’s Choice Of
Royal Biographies
Shadows of a Princess by PD
Jephson (2000). Beautifully written
and sympathetic account of Diana by
her private secretary, who reveals that
the Princess was a complex but also
brilliant woman.
The Prince of Wales: A Biography
by Jonathan Dimbleby (1994).
Dimbleby had extraordinary access to
correspondence and to the Prince
himself—which gives this authorised
account historic importance.
Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the
War Between the Windsors by Tom
Bower (2022). Bower’s explosive romp
of a read certainly takes no prisoners.
I’d love to read what he couldn’t include
for legal reasons.
Traitor King by Andrew Lownie
(2021). Scrupulous examination of King
Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson, the
grasping American socialite he gave up
his crown to marry. Exposes the sad
truth about this self-serving couple.
Queen of Our Times: The Life of
Elizabeth II by Robert Hardman
(2022). The definitive biography,
meticulously researched and packed
with nuggets of detail. Written in an
energetic and easy style, this is a real
page-turner.
Books
THAT CHANGED MY LIFE
Vaseem Khan is a multi award-winning crime
novelist. This year he’ll be chairing the Theakston
Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, July 20-23 in
Harrogate, Yorkshire. As told to Miriam Sallon

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

I grew up in the UK, but my heritage is from the subcontinent. At the age of
23, I went to India to work. I was puttering around a small bookshop in
Mumbai on a rainy day and I came across this book called Midnight’s
Children. I’d never heard of it. When I read it, I was instantly taken by the
narrative about India’s independence struggle. You would think, as
someone with that heritage, I would know, but I didn’t. It gave me a solid
grounding in the history I would eventually write about in the Malabar House crime
novels, which are set in 1950s India just after independence and partition.

Death on the Nile by The No. 1 Ladies’

Agatha Christie
I was 18 when I came across
this book, and it became the
start of my love affair with
crime fiction. It was
fascinating to me, the way Agatha Christie
introduces red herrings and alternate
suspects. And then the plot twists that come
at the end of the book and pull the rug out
from under you. For me, this book is a well
that I keep going back to for the purposes of
craft, seeing how she pulls off misdirection.
A couple of years ago, I was invited to speak
at the International Agatha Christie festival
in Torquay, which is Agatha’s hometown.
I also got to visit Agatha’s home and stand
next to her typewriter. That was such a
wonderful moment.
Detective Agency
by Alexander
McCall Smith
By the time I was writing
The Unexpected
Inheritance of Inspector Chopra, I was 40,
and I didn’t think I was going to get
published. I’d almost given up on the
dream. I wasn’t sure whether the tone
was correct for a crime novel, because as
well as a murder, it includes a lot of dark
aspects of India, but with charm and wit.
That’s when I came across this book. It
served as a beacon to help me edit my
book—it gave me a marker that this kind
of story was publishable. That book was
picked up in a four-book deal and gave
me a career.

FOR MORE, GO TO READERSDIGEST.CO.UK/CULTURE MAY 2023 • 141

 The Metaverse
Why are tech people
all talking about the
"Metaverse" and could it
really be the future of the
internet and interaction?
BY James O'Malley
142 • MAY 2023
since the internet was first invented in
the 1970s, it has changed a lot. In just a
few decades, we’ve gone from white
text on a black background to the
colourful, whizz-bang, interactive apps
we enjoy today. But innovation isn’t
going to stop. So what comes next?
The answer—if you believe the
panglossian tech executives in Silicon
Valley—is something called “The
Metaverse”, and it sounds almost
ridiculous, until you realise that lots
of powerful and important people are
actually taking it seriously.
 TECHNOLOGY

So what is the Metaverse? In its call, the idea is that in the Metaverse
simplest form, it’s an imagined we’ll be able hold business meetings,
version of the internet we’ll one day hang out with our friends and play
access by wearing a virtual reality games together in a shared, virtual 3D
(VR) headset. This is basically a pair space. That’s right—it’s like someone
of goggles with screens instead of watched The Matrix and thought, This
lenses, which tries to trick your brain sounds like a great idea!
into thinking it is fully immersed Surprisingly, the idea isn’t entirely
inside another world. When you turn hypothetical either. Tech companies
your head, the images on screen big and small are today working on
move with it, so you products and
can move around in a
real-feeling space.
It’s like someone technologies that
could make the
Think something like watched The Matrix Metaverse work. And
a 3D video game
world, but where you
and thought “This Facebook is perhaps
the most prominent
feel as though you sounds like a example. In 2021,
actually are the CEO Mark
character on the
great idea!” Zuckerberg
screen inside of it. dramatically
VR itself is not new announced that he
(I remember trying was betting big on
out a very basic version of such a the Metaverse becoming the next big
headset and riding the dodgems at a thing—and even renamed his
virtual funfair in the 1990s), but over company from "Facebook" to "Meta"
the last few years the technology has as a statement of intent.
evolved, with screen resolution and So far, the results have been limited
computing power catching up with but point to what the future could
what science-fiction writers may look like. Maybe. With the name
envisage about a technologically change announcement, the company
advanced, futuristic world. unveiled what it calls “Horizon
But what makes the Metaverse Workrooms''. It’s essentially a virtual
different is that fundamental to the
idea is that you’re connected to the James is a technology
internet—and to other people, in a writer and journalist.
social experience. Much like how A former editor of tech
website Gizmodo UK,
today we can interact with other James can be found mostly
people by typing messages on on Twitter posting jokes of
Facebook or even in video on a Zoom variable quality @Psythor

MAY 2023 • 143

TECHNOLOGY
reality app that lets you hold a
meeting in a virtual office. You log on,
a bit like joining a Zoom, albeit with a
headset strapped to your face, and
you appear in the virtual room,
populated by cartoon avatars
representing each person.
And once you’re "inside", you can
talk to your colleagues just like on an
ordinary call, or you can use a bunch
of collaboration tools together, like
writing on a virtual whiteboard. And
unlike a real meeting, if the room isn’t
set out like you want, with a click of the
mouse you can rearrange the tables
and chairs to suit whatever meeting
format you like. And what if you don’t
like the view from the virtual window?
Well, you can change that too.
But if this is the first glimpse of the
Metaverse, there is still a long way to
go. The eventual hope from many in
144 • MAY 2023
Silicon Valley is that one day the
Metaverse will work just like the
internet, where anyone can create
their own space that can seamlessly
integrate with everyone else.
The dream is that one day we’ll
make our own, fully immersive 3D
worlds that will all be joined
together—enabling us to leap with
our friends directly from the office, to
the football pitch—and then, say, to a
volcano to fight a dragon. All from the
comfort of our own homes.
It might sound crazy now, and the
Metaverse does have its sceptics—but
not so long ago YouTube and
Instagram might have felt just as
impossible and magic to the early
pioneers of the internet. Let’s just
hope that the people working on the
Metaverse today watched The Matrix
all the way to the end. Q

Ask The Tech Expert
James O'Malley
Q: Why does the picture on my TV
look weird and how can I stop it?
- Justin
A: If you’ve bought a new TV in the last
six or seven years, you’ve probably
noticed something strange: the picture
is weirdly… smooth?
This is what most people call
“motion smoothing”. It’s an effect that
will make Hollywood blockbusters and
serious dramas look every bit as cheap
and cheerful as a shopping channel.
But TV manufacturers seem intent on
inflicting it on us, because it makes for
more dramatic images on the screen,
especially when you’re walking along
the TV aisle in a branch of Currys.
The reason it doesn't look quite right
is because it’s an attempt to use
computer trickery to make smoother
pictures: typically, TV is broadcast at
25 frames—or images—per second in
the UK. Your TV tries to make it
smoother by running at 50 frames per
second, and using clever algorithms to
guess what the in-between frames
might look like.
For example, if a car is
driving across the screen,
motion smoothing will
analyse two frames with the
car in a slightly different
position on each, and then
illustration by
Daniel Garcia
READER’S DIGEST
it will attempt to generate the in-
between frame, with the car half-way
between the two positions. The results
are, in my correct opinion, horrible.
How can you fix it?
Annoyingly, each TV brand calls the
mode something different. Samsung
calls it “Auto Motion Plus”, LG calls it
“TruMotion,” and Sony calls it “Motion
Flow,” for example.
But if you dig into the picture
settings menu on your TV, you should
be able to find a button to turn it off. It
might be hidden inside a further
“Expert Settings” or “Additional
Settings” menu if you can’t find it.
Or, if you have a slightly newer TV,
there’s a much better way: simply look
through your “Picture Mode” options,
where you’ll be able to pick different
modes like “Sport”, “Movie”, or “Video-
games”, and make sure that you pick
out “Filmmaker mode”.
The idea with this latter mode is that
the TV will switch off any “post-
processing” it performs on images—
giving you the picture as the
people who made the show or
film you’re watching originally
intended. Phew! Q
Email your tech questions for James to
readersletters@readersdigest.co.uk
MAY 2023 • 145
 FUN & GAMES

You Couldn’t
£50 PRIZE Make It Up
QUESTION Win £30 for your
THREE-IN-ONE true, funny stories!
Using all the letters listed below Go to readersdigest.co.uk/contact-us
only once, can you find the or facebook.com/readersdigestuk
name of three wars?
Several years ago I was teaching in
aabcccd Melbourne. Like most Brits down
under, I wanted to make the most of
eeiiillm my time in Oz, so I would take every
chance to travel around the far
noorrv corners of Australia.
On one trip, myself and three
friends went as far into the Outback
as it is possible to go, camping and
THE FIRST CORRECT ANSWER trekking in Arnhem Land in the
WE PICK WINS £50!* Northern Territory. There were plenty
of crocodiles and smaller, deadly
Email excerpts@readersdigest.co.uk
critters to make this pom nervous.
After picking up some provisions
ANSWER TO APRIL'S from an isolated shop near an even
more isolated settlement, we reached
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was a likely spot for dangerous salt
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AND THE £50 GOES TO… top of the wheels, but within seconds
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NICK EVANS, Cheshire
heart was beating fast as I peered

146 • MAY 2023

out, searching for any suspicious
looking logs floating towards us.
Suddenly there was a scream from
the back seat. "Ah! Get it off, it hurts!"
I spun round, certain I was about
to see a horrifyingly grizzly spectacle.
It turned out one of my friends had
bought a hot pie in the isolated little
store. The contents, hotter than the
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We made it to the other side with
no salties sighted. Just one passenger
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NEIL JOPSON, Kent
Recently at work I received a
sample umbrella for our business
and duly went to open it in the office
and see it in all its glory.
A colleague warned me it was bad
luck, to which I called them daft.
The umbrella was great, and I
closed it and went to sit down at my
desk, at which point the back fell off
of my chair and I collapsed on the
floor with my colleagues laughing.
This was followed an hour later
with me picking my (thankfully)
lukewarm cup of coffee up and the
handle breaking, covering my desk
and my trousers in coffee.
I for one will not be opening an
umbrella inside again any time soon.
LUKE RUSSELL, Wakefield
When our ageing labrador, Rosie,
started to suffer from arthritis, I
cartoon by Michael Parkin
"YOU HONESTLY DON'T HAVE TO
PROVE IT ANYMORE!"
jokingly suggested we fit a stairlift for
her so she could still get upstairs.
My teenage daughter turned to me
and said with great relief, "Mummy,
what a good idea! And then you’ll
have it ready for when you get old.
You might even need it before Rosie!"
I was in my early forties!
NICOLA DALEY, Carlisle
My daughter was sick, so I put her to
sleep with me in the big bed and my
husband slept in the single bed that
night. When he woke up, he was very
uncomfortable and full of glitter.
I asked my daughter, who was six
years old at the time, why she had so
much glitter on her bed.
She replied, "I would like Daddy to
have a magical night with colourful
dreams as a thank you for letting me
sleep with Mum."
GISELLE CISTERNA, London
MAY 2023 • 147
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IT PAYS TO INCREASE YOUR
Word Power
You know what they say about all work and no play.
Take a break and see if you know these terms of employment
BY G EO RG E MU RR AY
1. merger—A: brainstorming ideas.
B: when two or more companies are
combined. C: working together on a
project with a colleague.
2. benchmarks—A: notes left
on desks. B: computer errors.
C: standards for measurement.
3. flextime—A: flexible work hours.
B: stretch break during a meeting.
C: abuse of power.
4. matrix—A: multi-manager
structure. B: office printer. C: type of
graph paper.
5. delegating—A: deleting sensitive
content. B: hiring. C: assigning tasks
to others.
6. ergonomics—A: lunchtime
aerobics. B: workplace design for
health and safety. C: accounting
structure of a business.
7. moonlighting—A: defrauding the
company of funds. B: working a
second job. C: gathering production
materials together.
8. turnover—A: rate of staff
changes. B: unaddressed problem.
C: business lost to competitors.
FUN AND GAMES
9. garnishment—A: catering
budget. B: court-ordered seizure
of pay. C: net earnings.
10. hotelling—A: providing
temporary office space to
telecommuters. B: meeting in
upscale venues. C: staying overnight
at work.
11. inpatriate—A: loyal employee.
B: insufferable colleague. C: foreign
employee working at headquarters.
12. downshifting—A: passing
the blame. B: taking a less
demanding job for lifestyle reasons.
C: economic slowdown.
13. remediation—A: correction of
a deficiency. B: repetitive
presentation. C: holiday time.
14. nepotism—A: tax evasion.
B: stress-related breakdown.
C: favouritism shown to relatives.
15. perquisite—A: job requiring
pleasant demeanour. B: special
employment benefit. C: final
paycheque for a job.
MAY 2023 • 149
WORD POWER
Answers
1. merger—[B] when two or more
companies are combined; Leo and
Savi agreed on a merger to unite their
businesses into a single company.
2. benchmarks—[C] standards for
measurement; Margot outlined the
quarter’s ambitious benchmarks.
3. flextime—[A] flexible work hours;
Hamid came in an hour early as part of
his flextime plan for picking up the kids
from school.
4. matrix—[A] multi-manager
structure; Li needed a flow chart to
understand her reporting matrix.
5. delegating—[C] assigning tasks to
others; Genevieve’s overflowing desk
revealed she clearly wasn’t delegating
enough work.
6. ergonomics—[B] workplace
design for health and safety; The
consultant adjusted Joan’s chair, saying
her back problems were a result of
poor ergonomics.
7. moonlighting—[B] working a
second job; Milos’s colleagues were
tickled to learn he was moonlighting as
an opera singer.
8. turnover—[A] rate of staff changes;
Employees were offered a better
benefits package in a company effort
to reduce turnover.
9. garnishment—[B] court-ordered
seizure of pay; The deductions on
150 • MAY 2023
John’s pay stub included union dues
and child-support garnishment.
10. hotelling—[A] providing
temporary office space to
telecommuters; Lazlo’s old cubicle
was used for hotelling off-site workers.
11. inpatriate—[C] foreign employee
working at headquarters; The British
engineering team boasts several
inpatriates with degrees from the
Indian Institutes of Technology.
12. downshifting—[B] taking a less
demanding job for lifestyle reasons;
With a third child on the way,
Sarom downshifted to a position that
would allow for more time at home.
13. remediation—[A] correction of a
deficiency; Felicia excelled at
programming but needed remediation
on her customer service skills.
14. nepotism—[C] favouritism shown
to relatives; The appointment of the
CEO’s inexperienced daughter to head
of sales smacks of nepotism.
15. perquisite—[B] special
employment benefit; Andrea noted
her new job’s perquisites, which
included gym membership and a
company vehicle.
VOCABULARY RATINGS
7–10: fair
11–12: good
13–15: excellent
 COMPETITIONS

Reader’s Digest MAY 2023

Competitions – ENTRY FORM
Enter today for your Fill in all your answers below:
(enter as many as you like – one entry per
chance to win! competition per person)

Page 88 2-Night stay at Grove

Cottage Suite

Page 108 7-Night Danube River Cruise

Page 124 Prize Wordsearch –

Photo Finder Ultimate Cheese Hamper

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Page 131 Prize Crossword – £200 Gourmet
inside this issue of the
Reader’s Digest magazine, but
can you find it? Once you have, simply
write the page number on your entry Page 151 Photo Finder
form, or enter online.

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 FUN & GAMES

Brain

GAMES
Sharpen Your Mind

Fun At The Fair

easy Mira is taking Adam, Bobby, Caroline and Didi to the fairground for a fun trip to
celebrate the start of summer. Each child has a favourite food and carnival ride. With
the clues below, can you figure out what each child’s choice of snack and ride is? The
choices are: roller coasters, the Ferris wheel, bumper cars, merry-go-round, cotton
candy, hot dogs, ice cream and candy apples.

1. The one who likes roller coasters also likes

cotton candy.
2. The one who likes the Ferris wheel hates hot
dogs and ice cream.
3. Adam thinks the Ferris wheel is too slow

fun at the fair by beth shillibeer; number maze by fraser simpson

and the roller coaster is too fast.
4. One child likes bumper cars and hot dogs.
5. Bobby can’t wait to finally get to the
merry-go-round.
6. Caroline likes to be high above everyone on
the Ferris wheel.

Number Maze
medium In this maze, start at the 5 in the 5 5 4 2 3 4
top-left corner and move horizontally or
vertically (but never diagonally) to reach the 3 3 1 4 1 1
star in the bottom-right corner. At each
move, travel in only one direction the same 2 3 2 1 2 2
number of squares as the number in the cell
you are currently on. Since you are starting 4 4 4 3 4 2
on a cell containing 5, your next move is
either 5 squares to the right or 5 squares
5 1 2 3 4 5
down. The next move will be based on your
new cell’s number. Can you find the path?
4 5 4 5 2
152 • MAY 2023
 Good Luck
difficult

1 1 C
3 9 C B
5 7
C A
good luck by darren rigby; set free by fraser simpson; alterations while you wait by darren rigby

7 ?
9 9
11 4 Set Free
Using two simple calculations, each
number on the left is transformed to
the one on the right. What is the
missing number for 7? Hint: If you
start with a low number, the second
step doesn’t do anything much.
A
difficult Place an A, B or C in each
empty cell of this grid. No three
consecutive cells in a horizontal, vertical
or diagonal line may contain a set of
identical letters (such as B-B-B) or a set
of three different letters (such as C-A-B).
Can you ensure a set-free grid?

Alterations While You Wait

medium You’re in need of a 20 in a hurry, and all you have is a 1. You can change the
number you have into a new number in any of the following ways, but it’s going to
cost you:

) Add 5: £15 ) Multiply by 3: £8 ) Multiply by 5: £24

) Divide by 2: £3 ) Add 7: £13 ) Subtract 1: £5
) Subtract 4: £2 )Subtract 6: £4

What’s the cheapest way you can get exactly 20?

For answers, turn to PAGE 155

MAY 2023 • 153

       

 
CROSSWISE
Test your
general
 
knowledge.
 Answers
on p158
  

  

 

   



  

 

ACROSS
9 Inverted slow-mover (5)
10 Hyped too high (9)
11 Carton containing other cartons (5)
12 Exciting experience (9)
13 Teetotal (3)
14 Once the subject of a financial
bubble (5)
15 House of worship (9)
17 Explode (5)
19 It’s white for a new Pope (5)
22 Construction sites with slipways (9)
24 Informal greeting (3,2)
26 Temporary home for many
serious cases (1-1,1)
27 Most employees think this
of themselves (9)
29 Goes for gold? (5)
30 Lofty (9)
31 Military subdivisions (5)
DOWN
1 Dates (7)
2 Backpackers’ stopover (6)
3 Neither you nor me but the other
guy (5,5)
4 Sudden attacks (6)
5 Portions (8)
6 Left behind after a cat vanishes (4)
7 Conflict (8)
8 Stuck to a surface with a substance (7)
16 Pleasant mood (4,6)
17 Beneficiary of a Biblical miracle (5,3)
18 Corrida star (8)
20 Soften minced sausage (7)
21 Hold (7)
23 Oscar-winning actor _____ Poitier (6)
25 Advantageous to both sides (3-3)
28 Harassed persistently (4)
 READER’S DIGEST

BRAIN GAMES
SUDOKU ANSWERS
FROM PAGE 152
BY Louis-Luc Beaudoin

Fun At The Fair

8 2 4 Adam likes hot dogs and
bumper cars; Bobby likes
2 9 7 4 ice cream and the merry-
go-round; Caroline likes
1 5 9 candy apples and the
Ferris wheel; Didi likes
8 3 2 cotton candy and the
roller coaster.
6 7 5 Number Maze
The correct sequence of
9 6 1 moves is: down 5, right 4,
left 2, up 4, left 1, down 3,
4 1 3 5 up 1, right 4, down 2.

1 6 2 8 Good Luck
7 13. Square the
2 9 number, then add up the
digits in your answer.

To Solve This Puzzle Set Free

Put a number from 1 to 9 in A A C A
each empty square so that: SOLUTION B C C B
7 1 9 8 5 4 3 2 6 A C A A
) every horizontal row and 8 4 3 2 9 6 1 5 7 A A C A
vertical column contains all 6 2 5 3 1 7 8 4 9
nine numbers (1-9) without 3 8 1 6 7 5 2 9 4 Alterations While You
repeating any of them; 5 7 4 9 2 1 6 8 3 Wait
9 6 2 4 3 8 7 1 5 Add 7 (8, £13), multiply
) each of the outlined 3 x 3 by 3 (24, £21), subtract 4
2 9 8 5 6 3 4 7 1
4 3 7 1 8 9 5 6 2
boxes has all nine numbers, 1 5 6 7 4 2 9 3 8
(20, £23).
none repeated.

MAY 2023 • 155

 FUN & GAMES

WIN £30
for every reader’s joke we publish!
Go to readersdigest.co.uk/contact-us
or facebook.com/readersdigestuk

A recent survey shows that only five Did you hear about the first
out of six people actually enjoy restaurant to open on the moon? It
Russian roulette. had great food, but no atmosphere.
MAGGIE COBBETT, Yorkshire JAMIE COOPER, Devon

Did you hear about the hyena who ate
an OXO Cube? He made himself a
laughing stock.
RYAN ROSWELL, Norfolk
I was stealing things in the
supermarket today while balanced on
the shoulders of a couple of vampires.
I was charged with shoplifting on
two counts!
STEPHEN THOMAS, Denbighshire
I had a happy childhood. My dad
used to put me inside a tyre wheel
and then roll me down the hill. They
were the Goodyears.
RYAN AITCHISON, Cheshire
Gran likes the sound of ChatGPT.
“Yes, a chat, a cuppa and some
doctor’s advice sounds like a great
idea for an app.”
FIONA ORD-SHRIMPTON, Glasgow

What do you call a pig with

laryngitis? Disgruntled.
JOANNE CAMPBELL, County Antrim

156 • MAY 2023

 The Punning Man
Once proclaimed one of the “50 funniest people on Twitter”,
Sean Leahy shares some of his favourite puns with us

The reason you’ll never see

milkmen wear flip-flops is because
they lactose.

I’ve got myself a magic dog. It’s a

Labracadabrador.

My wife was angry with me because

I was too lazy to put the cat out last
night. But in my defence, she was
nearer the fire extinguisher.

Don’t worry if you’re too shy to

ask someone; you can always
KajaGoogle it.
I recently had a job interview at a
local restaurant. The first question
they asked was why I thought I
would make a good waiter. And
honestly, I just think I would bring a
lot to the table.
© MI HÁLY O ROD ÁN
me down,” I told her I didn’t get the
promotion and I forgot to pick the
kids up from school.
I believe that talking in libraries
shouldn’t be aloud.
My optician always says that
eyesight should be like cricket.

You can’t make a sea monster Ideally twenty-twenty with a test

omelette without kraken eggs. every couple of years.

I hid the ladder while my wife was in My grandad had a pet shop. Which
the loft, and when she said, “Hey, let was a silly thing to have as a pet.

MAY 2023 • 157

LAUGH

Do you know what the temperature

inside a beehive is? S’warm.
My Dumb
Superpower
I’ve seen some gorgeous police officers
in my time, but the one that pulled me Twitter users share their
over this morning was breathtaking. funny or weird thing that is
their dumb superpower
Dog trainers are expensive, aren’t they?
@elise_millsssss: I can always
And mine can’t even tie his laces! think of really good comebacks,
but only two weeks after the
The security guard at Ikea told me if they actual argument.
catch me stealing any more kitchen
utensils they’ll ban me for life. But that’s @Brian_Cronin: I can always
a whisk I’m willing to take. tell if I’m listening to the opening
bass line of “Ice Ice Baby” or
Date: “Do you have any pets?” “Under Pressure”.
Me: “Yes, I have two goldfish.”
@SomethingPork: The ability
Date: “Any hobbies?”
to see the numbers on a house
Me: “Oh yeah, they absolutely or building without turning the
love swimming.” volume down in my car.

Which horse is the worst at snooker? @JustMyTweet: I can make

Mr Ed. pizza disappear.

I’ll leave you with a little bit of wisdom… @kansasbradbury: I have the
Life is like a box of chocolates. I wish I ability to realise when I have
had one. overstayed my welcome. I don’t
leave, but I sometimes think
about it.
Follow Sean on Twitter at @thepunningman

CROSSWORD ANSWERS
Across: 9 Sloth, 10 Overrated, 11 Outer, 12 Adventure, 13 Dry, 14 Tulip, 15 Synagogue,
17 Burst, 19 Smoke, 22 Shipyards, 24 How do, 26 I-C U, 27 Underpaid, 29 Mines, 30 Grandiose,
31 Units
Down: 1 Escorts, 2 Hostel, 3 Third party, 4 Forays, 5 Servings, 6 Grin, 7 Struggle, 8 Adhered, 16 Good
humour, 17 Blind man, 18 Toreador, 20 Assuage, 21 Possess, 23 Sidney, 25 Win-win, 28 Rode
 READER’S DIGEST

Beat the Cartoonist! IN THE

JUNE ISSUE

KNOW YOUR
SCREENINGS
The definitive guide
to tests for every age
Think of a witty caption for this cartoon—the and sex
three best suggestions, along with the cartoonist’s
original, will be posted on our website in mid-MAY. If your entry
gets the most votes, you’ll win £50.
Submit to captions@readersdigest.co.uk
by MAY 7. We’ll announce the winner
in our July issue.

MARCH WINNER
I REMEMBER…
Andrew
Pritchard
From illegal raves and
doing time to
rehabilitation and
redemption

Cabinets Of
Our cartoonist’s caption, “We need to go back to work
Wonder
and rebuild the economy post-hibernation” failed to A short history of the
beat our reader Mary Murfin, who won the vote with, fascinating private
“No, I don’t use hair gel. It’s all completely collections that became
natural!” Congratulations, Mary! the first museums

cartoons by Royston Robertson MAY 2023 • 159

GOOD NEWS

when they stumbled across an

amazing find: a handwritten letter
GOOD from Charles III to his granny, the

NEWS
from around
Queen Mother Elizabeth, dating back
to March 15, 1955.
the World The letter read, “Granny, I am
sorry that you are ill. I hope you will
be better soon. Lots of love from
Charles.” It was found among other
royal memorabilia including an
invitation to a ball at Balmoral Estate.
The couple, who chose to remain
anonymous, plan to sell the
memorabilia in an auction. The
husband explained that the
collection originally belonged to his
late grandfather, Roland Stockdale.
The Queen Mother and Prince Charles
on Buckingham Palace’s balcony, 1956
“My grandad, originally a farm
worker from Carlisle, moved to
A Couple Found A London to find work and got a job
with the Metropolitan Police,” he
Handwritten Letter said. “He went on to work for the
By Charles III In Queen’s personal protection force
during the 1950s. The file includes
The Attic pictures of him in the Information
Room in Scotland Yard in 1952. I was

W
hen you think attic, told he was originally involved in
you probably think helping to protect the Queen Mother
boxes of Christmas but he probably worked with several ZU MA P RES S, INC. / ALAMY S TOCK PH OTO

decorations, or dusty royals over time.”

photo albums. If you’re on the
superstitious side you might even
think ghost. You probably don’t think
handwritten letter from a member
of the royal family… but that’s
exactly what one couple found when
clearing out their attic!
The couple, from Stratford-upon-
Avon, were clearing out their loft
The collection of royal
memorabilia was passed down after
Roland Stockdale’s passing, and went
undiscovered for years. If you have
an attic or other storage space, this is
your cue to have a big clear out—
who knows what hidden treasures
you might find there!
by alice gawthrop

160 • MAY 2023

‘I’LL BE THERE TO HELP PROTECT
LIFEBOAT VOLUNTEERS
AT SEA. WILL YOU?’
Chris Huxley – proudly leaving a gift in his Will to the RNLI
‘It was horrendous. For 2 days and 2 nights 6 in 10 lifeboat launches are only possible
we were at the mercy of the sea. I was with thanks to gifts in Wills. RNLI volunteers
four friends, sailing from England to France. rely on people like you and Chris to keep
We were all seasick. Seasick and frightened. them safe. When we receive your gift,
your name will be added to the side of
‘We never forgot the relief we felt when the a lifeboat, so you’ll be by their side on
brave Newhaven lifeboat crew came to the every launch.
rescue. It all happened 50 years ago – and the
lifeboat volunteers are still on a mission to Three easy ways to request your
save every one today. free RNLI Gifts in Wills Guide:
By leaving a gift in my Will, I’m helping to 1. Return the attached form below
ensure they’ll be there tomorrow, with the kit
and training they need to save lives and come 2. Visit RNLI.org/Digest
home safely.
3. Call 0300 300 0062
‘I’ll be there, right beside the crew when lives
are on the line. And you can be there too.’ Photos: RNLI/Nigel Millard, Lynda Huxley

To receive a free, no-obligation Gifts in Wills Guide, fill in the form below and send to: LPA/UK/CL/0423
‘Freepost RNLI WILLS’ (no stamp or other address details required)
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(1308 and 006329F), the Bailiwick of Guernsey and Alderney, of West Quay Road, Poole, Dorset, BH15 1HZ Fundraising Regulator
 LIMITED EDITION

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