Cover - Viva Lewes

M Y Y L LE EW W EES S
Jane Aiken Hodge recently celebrated her 90th birthday.
A career writing historical romances began after
her thirtieth birthday when her younger daughter
started school. Jane stopped writing novels after her
thirty-fifth was published in 2003. She started drafting
her memoirs but got bored and now she does editing
and other writing work as it arises. She’s something
of an expert on Regency women; her books include a
biography of Jane Austen.
Are you local? I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts
[Jane’s father was poet and critic Conrad Aiken],
but my family came over to Britain when I was three
and we lived in Winchelsea. After the birth of my sister,
we moved to Rye. During the ferocious divorce
of my parents, my mother used to meet the man who
later became my stepfather, Martin, in The White
Hart, which is how I first knew about Lewes. I bought
this house, which was called the Welcome Stranger, in
1972, at auction. It has an Elizabethan bread oven in
the cellar, and was clearly an ale house handy for the
Priory. Their hops fields were near Eastport Lane. I
was told it became a doss house sleeping eighty men,
with bunks in what is now my sitting room.
What do you like about Lewes? Lewes is my patch.
The beauty of it is that you can do everything on foot.
I don’t drive, but go out every -day hunter-gathering
with my old rucksack to get dinner, often dropping
into the library, which is wonderful. I had some involvement
in lobbying to get the new one built. And
Lewes is so friendly. When I walk down the High
Street, I see batches of people I would like to talk to.
I would rather enjoy having a party and just inviting
people I like the look of. Also, it’s so interesting to enter
a house and catch sight of a lovely garden tucked
away in the back, which you never knew existed.
What’s your favourite pub? I like to go to country
pubs for lunch with my daughter or friends. The Jolly
W W W. V I V A L E W E S . C O M
Sportsman, the Rainbow, the Griffin and the Trevor
Arms are my favourites.
What’s your poison? Dry sherry and red wine. My
father passed his Wine Society shares onto me and I
get it delivered by the boxful.
Where do you shop? I use the milkman, Patel’s,
shops in the Riverside and Bill’s, and the car boot sale
and charity shops for books. I would choose Waitrose
over Tesco. I once discovered I had shares in Tesco
and demanded they be sold. I now realise, for all sorts
of reasons including shopping and e-mailing family,
how useful it would have been to have become computer
literate. But my sister Joan Aiken [also a prolific
writer. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase was one of
her books] and I encouraged each other not to.
What’s your favourite Lewes landmark? I enjoy
looking up to the castle from here, and it is lovely, but
I’d have to say the Grange Gardens by a short head.
I treat it as my garden, it’s so close, and they’ve done
so much to improve it. They have just won a national
award for good maintenance.
How would you spend a perfect Sunday afternoon?
I love walking by the sea. My favourite walk is the one
that starts by the barn up at Seaford Head, along the
cliff and down to Cuckmere Haven.
Can you recommend a good film? I loved The
Queen, but I don’t get to many films these days. They
go too fast, leaping from point to point and I don’t
hear so well. More often, I go to Glyndebourne or the
Theatre Royal.
How do feel entering your tenth decade? With the
world as it is, I feel I’ve been around long enough. It’s
not a bad time to quit, though I feel I should be out
on the streets campaigning against global warming. I
gave up my American citizenship in the Nixon era, but
if I hadn’t, I would now.
V
Photograph: Alex Leith
Photograph: Katie Moorman