Love in Old Age: My Year in the Wight House

Description

A wryly humorous memoir from Hunter Davies, as he falls in love again in his eighties and chronicles the first year of living with his new girlfriend in their cottage on the Isle of Wight. King Charles II was imprisoned here; Queen Victoria so liked its mild climate and coastal scenery that she built an Italianate house here (and later expired in it); hundreds of thousands of people got stoned here at music festivals in the 1960s summers of love. And, in the very un-hippyish summer of 2020, Hunter and Claire escaped locked-down North London for a week's holiday on the Isle of Wight, fell in love with its sleepy charm - and ended up buying a Grade 2-listed love nest in the elegant Victorian seaside resort of Ryde. Love in Old Age tells the story of their first twelve months on the island. It is a journey of discovery to a forgotten corner of England; an exploration of the attraction of meeting new people and new places in old age, and a celebration of flat sandy beaches. It brings together the themes of love in old age; Covid lockdown; rural escape; the anxieties of house-buying; and the history and curiosities of England's largest and second most populous island - all bound together by Hunter Davies's insatiable curiosity about people and places, and his irrepressible and ironic sense of humour.

Hunter Davies is a prolific author, journalist and broadcaster who has written for Punch, the New Statesman, Guardian and Sunday Times. He is the author of more than 100 books, including the only authorized biography of The Beatles and biographies of Wordsworth, Beatrix Potter and Alfred Wainwright. He spent every summer in the Lake District for nearly half a century and his Lakeland: A Personal Journey was published by Head of Zeus in 2016. He now divides his time between North London and the Isle of Wight.

PRAISE FOR HUNTER DAVIES: 'Affable, curious, unpretentious, never dull, Hunter is one of the most agreeable egomanics I know' Michael Palin. 'Brilliantly funny' Daily Mail. 'Easy-going, humorous and a natural journalist, Hunter Davies comes across as a thoroughly nice man' Sunday Times. 'Our own national treasure' Helena Kennedy. 'Davies is a wonderful companion, leading readers down memory lane with great chumminess' * Daily Express *