The Old Un’s Notes

The Old Un still grieves for the late Dr Tom Stuttaford, GP at the Oldie Towers Surgery.

But, in the midst of death we are in life, and the Old Un is delighted to announce the arrival of a new Oldie doctor – much more earth-shattering news than the identity of the new Doctor Who.

Dr Theodore Dalrymple’s first column appears on page 93, where he pays tribute to Dr Tom. A retired consultant psychiatrist, Dr Dalrymple is one of Britain’s leading doctors and medical writers. He has worked in Africa, London’s East End and Birmingham. His medical journalism has appeared everywhere from the Times to the Observer to the Spectator. He is particularly admired for his mordantly funny pieces on life as a British prison doctor.

He has written more than 30 medical and travel books. His latest, Grief and Other Stories, published earlier this summer, is his second collection of short stories.

What a delight to welcome this Renaissance doctor to the surgery.

The Oldie is all for oldies who aspire to get into print – hence our Jeremy Lewis Prize for new writers over 50, and our popular journalism workshops.

So we’re pleased that the publishing world, which usually favours the young (giving out lashings of awards to new writers aged under 35), is redressing the balance. Among this summer’s cash prizes presented by the Society of Authors was the Tom Mckitterick Prize, for first-time authors over 40 (hardly oldies, but a slight improvement). On the same evening, the society announced a new prize for 2019 – for first novelists over 60. This is the Paul Torday Prize, honouring the late Torday who, at the age of 60, published his first novel, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. It was extremely successful and he went on to publish six more before he died.

Now we hear news of another prize for older debut writers. Four years ago, The Oldie profiled Sir Christopher Bland (1938-2017), Olympic fencer, pentathlete, soldier and the chairman of everything from the RSC to BT to the BBC.

He had always yearned to write a novel. So, in retirement, he sent himself back to the classroom. With tips from his Faber creative writing course’s teacher, Gillian Slovo, and, after many rejection slips, he published Ashes in the Wind at 76, and followed that with a play and a second novel.

His widow, Jennie, is planning to honour him by launching (through the Royal Society of Literature) a £10,000 award for first-time writers over 60. But organising such an award will involve putting up the sum of £600,000 – so the fundraising has begun in earnest. Watch this space.

The Old Un was sad to hear of the death of Alan Bean, the fourth man to walk on the Moon, at 86.

Oldie contributor Mark Mason mentions the astronaut in The Book of Seconds, out in September. Apollo 12 was the second mission to land on the Moon, in November 1969: ‘He was famous for saying, “Is that all there is?”, as he left the Moon. I assumed he’d been quoting the Peggy Lee song, about important events becoming disappointments.’

‘Actually I meant the complete opposite,’ Bean told Mason. ‘We only got a few hours on the Moon – I wanted to stay much longer!’

Earlier this year, The Oldie featured ‘Britain’s cleverest street’ in an article about the scribes and media darlings who, after 1960, formed a coterie in Gloucester Crescent, NW1: Alan Bennett, Jonathan Miller and George Melly among them.

Now one of the first children of that hothouse neighbourhood – William, 54-year-old son of Sir Jonathan Miller, has

written a memoir, Gloucester Crescent: Me, My Dad and Other Grownups.

It’s a boy’s eye view of a famously clever father, and contains memories of Dr Miller’s hair-tearing paranoia about his reputation: ‘Dad basically thinks his life has been a total waste of time. According to him, everything he’s done has amounted to nothing.’

In keeping with his absent-minded professor image, Dr Miller was domestically clueless, despite his towering intellect. When he took William to Berlin while directing a play, the fridge in their flat was stocked with nothing more than a carton of long-life milk and a box of Fru-grains.

When Dr Miller’s GP wife, Rachel, was briefly in hospital, he was defeated by heating up frozen peas for the children’s lunch.

And when Rachel bought a new car, Dr Jonathan (new to the driving skill) flew into a tantrum and cancelled the purchase because, when he tried it, the driving seat had been moved forward – so he thought the car would never accommodate his long legs.

Then there is the story of his daughter Kate’s budgie, Chippie. Dr Jonathan, charged with its care while the rest of the family were in Scotland, forgot to feed it. When Chippie died, he passed off another budgie in its place –sawing off the dead budgie’s leg so that its distinctive ring could be attached, by a local jeweller, to the new bird Young Kate was not deceived.

The book is an affectionate account of the octogenarian Millers, longest-surviving of the original Crescent pioneers; and their devoted son has now moved nextdoor-but-one, with his wife and daughters, cat and dog.

The Old Un is sad to announce the death of the adverb, killed off by admen and sports stars.

This summer, the Old Un was told in an advert for London tube travel on Classic FM to ‘travel kind’. Then, after the Open at Carnoustie, Northern Irish golfer Rory Mcilroy said, ‘I played aggressive.’ Tiger Woods added, ‘I played consistent.’

The passing of the adverb will be mourned deeply, mournfully and agonisingly – or deep, mournful and agonising.