Change of life

‘I published my first novel at 70.’ By Anne Youngson

‘You’ve done what, Mum?’ my son Douglas shouted down the phone. My grown-up children were busy getting married, forging careers, starting families – and here I was, a new grandmother, telling him that I was about to have my first novel published at the age of 70. It was the last thing he expected of his dependable old mum.

What Douglas and his sister Ailsa didn’t know was that I’d secretly dreamed of becoming a writer for years. In the 1970s I’d studied English literature at the University of Birmingham but back then choices for female graduates were slim and I ended up becoming a manager in the car-engineering industry. And yet, I still yearned to write. I kept it a secret from everyone, including my husband Paul. It felt like a private thing that was just for me, and I didn’t want to build myself up for failure by talking about it.

Soon after Ailsa was born in 1982, followed by our son Douglas in 1985, I returned to work and life became frantic. But it was during those busy years that I started to carve out time to write: staying at my desk at lunchtime I’d eat a hasty sandwich and work on my fledgling novel. My efforts weren’t that good, and the plot was about the car industry. Even so, I wrote it for me.

When I retired at 56, I signed up for a diploma in creative writing at Oxford University, and later an MA in creative writing at Oxford Brookes.

Paul was supportive, though he assumed it was just a casual hobby. Deep down, I was nervous. What if, after all of those years of expectation, no one thought I was any good? Plucking up the courage to let people read my work was hard. I remember sitting in an early seminar as another student waxed confidently about his work; my efforts seemed trite next to his and I felt like an imposter, though

I didn’t let on about my insecurities.

One day, after a particularly bruising seminar, my tutor (a novelist) took me aside and suggested that the book I was writing during the course – about a woman who finds love later in life – should be submitted to an agent. ‘I think you’ve really got something, Anne,’ he said, ‘I wished I’d written it.’ I felt tears welling up as I thought about those decades of selfdoubt and suppressed ambitions.

When I got the call to say a top agent loved the first few chapters of that novel, Meet Me at the Museum, I was sitting in an Oxford wine bar with my classmates, by now firm friends. They all cheered. ‘We knew you’d do it,’ said one. But I was conscious of my age. At 70, I worried the opportunity might be my only, and last, chance – so what if I blew it?

To my surprise, however, it all happened quickly. I was in the kitchen baking cakes when my agent called to say a major publisher had made a bid. I remember standing there with the phone in my sticky hand, feeling numb, the news not sinking in. ‘I’ll call you back: I’d better get the sponge in the oven,’ I said confusedly.

When I told Paul, he was as taken aback as our children. Though he knew about my studies, he never thought that I’d try to get published. Ours isn’t the sort of marriage in which we have secrets so the fact I’d kept everything so close to my chest bemused him.

When I was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award in 2018 everyone wanted to speak to me – but then the next week, the phone stopped ringing just as suddenly. I’m glad my literary success came later in life, as I would have taken the fluctuating attention quite badly when I was younger. It’s easy to stay grounded when your life is largely as it always has been: pottering in the kitchen, reading novels in your armchair.

These days, I spend the mornings writing. Paul reads my manuscripts and brings me cups of coffee. I have three grandchildren now, all under four, and I do feel a bit guilty about not spending more time with them, but my my main hope for the future is simple: that I’ll be able to carry on writing books people want to read. Meet Me at the Museum is out now in paperback (Black Swan, £8.99)

I was in the kitchen baking cakes when my agent called to say a major publisher had made a bid

Youngson at a meeting discussing her novel, which was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award