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KATHARINE WHITEHORN Emma Chaplin explores a veteran journalist’s selective memories I knock a little nervously at <strong>the</strong> door of <strong>the</strong> north London home of Katharine Whitehorn. I have come to discuss her <strong>for</strong>thcoming visit to <strong>Lewes</strong>’ Monday Literary Club, talking about her autobiography, Selective Memory. She greets me with her distinctly deep voice, and as I follow her into <strong>the</strong> living room, I admire her elegant outfit. Appropriate, as she was once Fashion Editor of <strong>the</strong> Observer (on a mission ‘to get women out of dreary cardigans’). The current photograph of her in <strong>the</strong> autobiography does not, I suggest, do her justice. She laughs: “There’s a lot to be said <strong>for</strong> a photograph that looks worse than you do.” Still writing at 80, she has always had a sharp and delicious wit. Domestic inadequates like me relish lines like: ‘Have you ever taken something out of <strong>the</strong> clo<strong>the</strong>s basket because it had become, relatively, <strong>the</strong> cleanest thing?’ As she lights a fire and pours coffee, I ask about her experiences as a Roedean pupil, evacuated to Cumberland in <strong>the</strong> war. “I regard it as a dark chapter. The ethos back <strong>the</strong>n was atrocious. Snobbish and games-mad. I’d have never lived it down on Fleet Street if I hadn’t run away.” Writer of <strong>the</strong> entertainingly practical book, Cooking in a Bedsitter, published in 1963 and still in print, Katharine was an Observer columnist <strong>for</strong> <strong>for</strong>ty years, and is now Saga Magazine’s Agony Aunt. A groundbreaking journalist, her funny, insightful columns exploded claustrophobic notions of ‘women’s interest’ stories. She describes her columns as: ‘Light but not, on <strong>the</strong> whole, lightweight’. One that caused a furor ch<strong>all</strong>enged <strong>the</strong> inherent sexism in banks. I ask her about it. “In <strong>the</strong> late 1960s a woman could still not get a mortgage without a male guarantor. I think young women now have no idea how much <strong>the</strong>y take <strong>for</strong> granted.” How does she like being an Agony Aunt? “I think it’s W W W. V i V a L E W E s . C o M common sense. I get a lot of letters from Saga-age women who worry about <strong>the</strong> odd behaviour of <strong>the</strong>ir husband after retirement. I tell <strong>the</strong>m ‘chaps feel awful when <strong>the</strong>y no longer have <strong>the</strong> persona of a male at work - it’s not to do with you.’” Katharine’s own husband, crime writer Gavin Ly<strong>all</strong>, died in 2003. They had been married 45 years and clearly adored each o<strong>the</strong>r. In her autobiography, she says about widowhood: ‘You have to learn to live in ano<strong>the</strong>r country in which you’re an unwilling refugee.’ They have two sons. We discuss how couples today tend to give priority to <strong>the</strong> needs of <strong>the</strong>ir children over keeping <strong>the</strong>ir marriage intact, and she shows me a passage from her 1972 book, How to Survive Children where it says: ‘There are few things that you can think up that will hurt your children as much as a serious rift between <strong>the</strong> two of you; don’t make a human sacrifice to <strong>the</strong> great God child, who won’t be <strong>the</strong>re <strong>for</strong>ever.’ At this point, her door bells rings. Someone has turned up unexpectedly <strong>for</strong> an interview. Katharine’s pragmatic response is to pour us <strong>all</strong> vast G&Ts. As I return to <strong>Lewes</strong> by train, I read in her book <strong>the</strong> words: ‘a journalist does, first and last, cross <strong>the</strong> path of a good many outstanding people.’ And I feel that that’s just happened to me. L i t E R a t U R E V Katharine will be <strong>the</strong> guest speaker <strong>for</strong> <strong>the</strong> Monday Literary Club at 8pm on <strong>the</strong> 15th December, in Pelham House (478512). 1 7
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