The Oldie

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.

The Oldie

Among this month’s contributors

The Old Un’s Notes

NOT MANY DEAD • Important stories you may have missed

Mapp and Lucia, the Queen and I • I love E F Benson’s novels - and so does Camilla

Au revoir, Fleet Street • Hunter Davies, 88, has been sacked again. He recalls 40 years of being fired – and firing Jeffrey Bernard and Bruce Chatwin

OLDEN LIFE

MODERN LIFE

Grandpa’s war on Hitler • Elisabeth Ruge Agentur salutes her grandfather, a leading member of the plot to kill the Führer 80 years ago

Could Idaho be Greater? • For the first time in 63 years, the USA could change shape

Good night at the theatre • The greatest critics often doze off. After seeing 8,000 plays, Benedict Nightingale knows the feeling

Smith vs Jones • A stalker terrified Griff Rhys Jones into believing his great friend and comedy partner wanted him dead

Divided island in the sun • Fifty years ago, Captain Nigel Pullman looked out of the British officers’ mess in Cyprus, and saw Turkish paratroopers invading

Golden age of theme tunes • In the sixties and seventies, TV and film music hit rare heights, from Match of the Day to The Professionals. By Andrew Roberts

I’m in the black and I hate it • At 73, lucky Adam Edwards has a full head of undyed, black hair, but he’s longing to go grey

Bohemia rhapsody • Marianne Faithfull misses her wild friends and the heady days of pure art and hot sex

Dressing down • The well-dressed man is almost extinct. Candida Crewe praises a rare dandy - her stepfather

The Picnic Bible • As the mercury rises, Kirsty Crawford salutes the finest guide to lunch outdoors

Beyond belief • Remember smoking actors? Foot X-rays in shoe shops? Joseph Connolly longs for the shocking lost pleasures of his youth

Floral queen • In 1703, the 1st Duchess of Beaufort, a botanist, commissioned a flower album. The current Duchess of Beaufort is now showing it at Badminton

God bless Plum Tart and Tawdry Audrey • The Pope - and his church - would be lost without gay priests

Electoral mystery tour • Elinor Goodman watched Maggie cuddle a calf, Peter Mandelson invent the soundbite - and John Prescott mangle his speeches

Christmas with Clem the Gem • Lady Antonia Fraser recalls meeting Clement Attlee at a Chequers children’s party in 1945, the year of his first general-election victory

A shady place for sunny people • As summer approaches, take shelter under a wide-brimmed hat

Please, sir, we don’t want more junk food

Hell is other people’s children on my sofa

Piano music - the food of my love for Mary

Ireland’s knight in shining armour • Tony O’Reilly, the first Irish citizen to be knighted by Elizabeth II, was a victim of Anglophobia. By Mary Kenny

Adieu to the Cleethorpes Shangri-La • Mother and I make a tearful pilgrimage to our hardware store, paradise of my childhood

Class resentment in the classroom

Victor Lownes

Tea for two hundred on a Jumbo jet

I am my brother’s keeper

Martin Amis (1949-2023)

Fear the...