The Old Un’s Notes

Happy 30th Birthday!

Happy 30th birthday to

The Oldie!

The first issue of the magazine (pictured) came out on 21st February 1992.

Richard Ingrams, the founding editor, said, ‘Many claim to have thought of the idea of The Oldie, including Alexander Chancellor and John McEwen, two of our backers. Another claimant is Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye. He is certainly one of the keenest enthusiasts, partly, I suspect, because if the magazine is successful, it will stop me hanging around in the Private Eye offices.’

Richard Ingrams is happily still with us, as is John McEwen, starring in these pages as our Bird of the Month columnist. Sadly, Alexander Chancellor, Richard’s successor as Oldie editor, died in 2017.

Other original directors included Patrick Marnham and the late Naim Attallah. Another director, Stephen Glover, now writes our Media Matters column. What a delight, too, that original contributors Mary Kenny, Richard Osborne and Valerie Grove are columnists for the magazine today.

Craig Brown pays tribute to Richard Ingrams in this issue. AN Wilson remembers another original director, the late Auberon Waugh. He also wrote a fine ode to Richard Ingrams in the first issue, reprinted above. Are we getting too fat for our graves?

That’s the worrying news coming out of Shropshire. The Shropshire Association of Local Councils has been considering the introduction of mega-graves.

The suggestion is that the current standard grave size of four feet by eight feet – 32 square feet – will be increased to a minimum burial plot size of just under 54 square feet. That’s a bumper increase of 68 per cent.

As well as being worrying news about our waistlines, the suggestion would also lead to space running out in graveyards. It doesn’t help that lots of land that could be used for graves is now allocated for housing development. Many

Ingrams Encore by AN Wilson. A tribute to The Oldie’s first editor in the first issue

When you and Private Eye were in your youth, The oldies howled, because you told the truth About the humbug world which Baillie Vass [Alec Douglas-Home’s nickname] Tried to protect with money or with class. Young Ingrams, Marnham, Rushton, Foot and Waugh Gleefully wove old England’s winding sheet. Unveiled Profumo’s lies, Wilson’s clay feet, The sins of Maxwell, Thorpe and many more. Some of your heroes then are now so old That they are dead and cannot be enrolled To write for you, but keep them in your mind Lest, mellowing in age, you should grow kind. Don’t wage a war on youth, which will outgrow Its childish follies – rather, raise a cry Against the shyster lawyers, the MPs, The flannel-bishops, the performing fleas Whom you lambasted yearly in the Eye. Remember Cockburn’s cruel vision, which Made him distrust the Tories and the rich. When tempted to admire some oldie shit Puncture his vanity with Driberg’s wit. When sentiment would lure you to invest Belief in humbugs, I would beg you lift From Malcolm Muggeridge his greatest gift: the inability to be impressed. Your enemies believe you’re off your trolley: Glory in that! And rage at this world’s folly. And laugh at Death and, with no trace of fear Mock gilded butterflies, like old King Lear. If, armed with writs, disgusted Middle Age Hires Carter-Ruck to close The Oldie down, Then you’ve succeeded! Everyone in town Will cheer an Ingrams encore on the stage.

Among this month’s contributors

Anne Robinson (p55) is known for being horrible on The Weakest Link and presents Countdown. She hopes to become a dutiful Cotswolds housewife even though, for obvious reasons, she isn’t married.

Mary Killen (p16) is Dear Mary on the Spectator. She and her husband, Giles Wood, The Oldie’s Country Mouse (p35), wrote The Diary of Two Nobodies.

Bruce Beresford (p36) is the director of Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy (1989). His films include Breaker Morant and The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, which he wrote with Barry Humphries (p18).

Craig Brown (p7 and p14) is Britain’s funniest writer. His diaries appear in Private Eye. He is the author of Ma’am Darling and One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time.