Harry Mount introduces the December 2026 issue of The Oldie
Welcome to The Oldie December issue – crammed with the best writers to get you through those ever-lengthening autumn nights.
Ever since he co-wrote The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook in 1982, Peter York has been one of the shrewdest social commentators of the age. And now he pinpoints his own generation - Generation O, as in Generation Oldie. The older companion of Generations X, Y and Z, Generation O were born from the mid-1930s to the early 60s: the generation that grew up in the wake of WWII.
And he defends them vigorously.
‘Everyone here and in America seems to blame Generation O for everything,’ he writes. But ‘If you say the generation that marched for civil rights and women’s ones, for gay rights and to end conflicts like the Vietnam War has turned out to be a group of selfish hypocrites …it wouldn’t be true.
‘These first marchers and world-changers are often still at it in their late seventies and beyond … not sitting at home counting their money.’
Jem Roberts, editor of the complete transcripts of Fry & Laurie, out now, salutes the breakthrough series by Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. He explores their enduring friendship, recalling their first meeting at Cambridge and their road to success. And he quotes their greatest vox pop lines:
Stephen: ‘Oh yes, my wife wears the trousers. No question. But we’re hoping to get a second pair sometime next year.’
Hugh:‘I’m afraid I was very much the traditionalist. I went down on one knee and dictated a proposal, which my secretary faxed over straight away.’
Other highlights include:
Jasper Rees, biographer of Michael Gambon, reveals how, even as dementia descended, the great actor retained his screen magic.
Mary Killen examines the difference between Old Money Face and Mar-a-Lago face - why natural wrinkles are so much more attractive than a face stretched beyond recognition.
Alexander Fyjis-Walker has just published the 10th edition of the greatest travel guidebook of all time, Venice for Pleasure, by JG Links, 60 years after it was first published.
A N Wilson laments the death of gossip, once the life blood of Fleet Street.
You will also find inside the December edition a free Cartoon Calendar and the 32-page Oldie Review of Books.
Enjoy!
Harry Mount, Editor
The Oldie
