Issue Spring 2022 - The Oldie (2024)

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The idea for the Oldie was cooked up 25 years ago by its founding editor, Richard Ingrams, and his much-lamented successor, the late Alexander Chancellor. Their aim was to create a free-thinking, funny magazine, a light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity. The Oldie is ageless and timeless, free of retirement advice, crammed with rejuvenating wit, intelligence and delight. With over 100 pages in every issue, The Oldie is packed with funny cartoons and free-thinking and intelligent articles covering a wide range of topics – from gardening and books to travel, arts, entertainment, and so much more.

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RegularsAmong this month’s contributorsMadeline Smith (p14) played Miss Caruso, the Bond Girl in Live and Let Die who has her dress unzipped by Roger Moore with a magnetic watch. A Hammer-horror star, she was also in Up Pompeii.Robert Bathurst (p22) was in Cold Feet and Downton Abbey. He played Ed Howzer-Black in Toast of London. A National Hunt devotee, he wrote, directed and starred in The Fall, a film about racing.A N Wilson (p51) is a leading novelist, biographer and historian. His most recent book is The King and the Christmas Tree. He has written biographies of Tolstoy, C S Lewis, Iris Murdoch and Jesus Christ.Nicky Haslam (p51) is a writer and interior designer. He wrote Redeeming Features and Folly de Grandeur: Romance and Revival in an English Country House. He recorded an…1 min

RegularsThe Old Un’s Notes✻ We can thank Colin Sell, the pianist on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, for revealing the late Barry Cryer’s favourite cartoon (pictured).Sell told the story during Radio 4’s tribute to Cryer after the Clue veteran and great friend of The Oldie died in February. But Sell wrongly attributed the cartoon to James Thurber, when it was actually the work of someone else.His name was Roger Pettiward. He was born in 1906 into a long line of wealthy London landowners. At Eton, his gift for draughtsmanship won him a succession of prizes. During the 1930s, he contributed cartoons to Punch – work with an often surreal touch, which delighted in puncturing pomposity and satirising the ruling classes, of which Pettiward – pseudonym Paul Crum – was himself a member.Pettiward…8 min

RegularsNOT MANY DEADWoman guilty in lettuce rowiFootball club picks up keys to changing roomsWalden LocalPolice in Leicestershire offered gifts including posters of Jamie Vardy and three bags of doughnutsHinckley Times£15 for published contributionsNEXT ISSUEThe May issue is on sale on 4th May 2022.FREE SAMPLE COPYIf you have a friend who would like a free sample of The Oldie, tell them to call 0800 8565867.GET THE OLDIE APPGo to App Store or Google Play Store. Search for Oldie Magazine and then pay for app.OLDIE BOOKSThe Very Best of The Oldie Cartoons, The Oldie Annual 2022 and other Oldie books are available at: www.theoldie.co.uk/readers-corner/shop Free p&p.OLDIE NEWSLETTERGo to the Oldie website; put your email address in the red SIGN UP box.…1 min

RegularsPeter taught me how to live – and dieOver the years, I have noticed how courageous and good-humoured people can be in the face of death. Twenty-four hours before he died, aged 45, the actor Simon Cadell – star of Hi-de-Hi and my best friend from school – looked up at me from his bed in the Harley Street Clinic, whispered ‘Cheerio, old chum,’ grinned and gave me a double thumbs-up.Not long before she died of cancer, aged 66, the actress and Oxo-ad mum, Lynda Bellingham, telephoned me to say, ‘It’s all fine. I’m ready to go. Don’t worry, be happy – I am.’And just recently, a month before he died of cancer on St Patrick’s Day, my wife and I had lunch at a local restaurant with our friend and neighbour, the actor Peter Bowles, and his…4 min

RegularsFake yellow lines make bad neighboursYou will have seen the distressing news that Neighbours, the Aussie soap that gave us Kylie, Jason and so much more, has been decommissioned.It goes without saying that devoted viewers such as myself, who last saw an episode in 1987, will miss it immeasurably.The one drop of consolation in this melancholic ocean is that the central message of its theme song will eternally outlive the show.‘Neighbours, everybody needs good neighbours’ – and especially of the kind whose proximity and innate goodness destine them to become good friends.And yet, as Nanny almost used to say, ‘I need’ never gets. For the sound of mind in towns, suburbs and above all rural villages, the only good neighbour is on holiday, or dead.Inevitably, Larry David put it best in Curb Your Enthusiasm. After…4 min

FeaturesHostesses from hellLong before COVID lockdowns, one of the reasons I stopped accepting invitations to dinner parties was the hostesses.Not the hosts, who tend to hover sheepishly in the background, taking the coats and dispensing the drinks – a sort of Johnnie Cradock role.It was always the hostesses who were the problem, showing off, being overbearing, launching around the room being characterful – and getting away with it, too, as this is their home territory, where they can be impossible with impunity. You can’t easily chuck them out in the street or lock them in the garage, though I was often tempted to do so.Hostesses are like bad actresses, and give these terrible impersonations of Margaret Rutherford or Penelope Keith, complete with chiffon capes and wooden beads. When I was in digs…2 min

Issue Spring 2022 - The Oldie (2024)

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