Our Patch july 2015
to you on a bus and says something.
Everyone talks about illnesses, ailments
and death. There’s no more interesting
subject than death. It becomes less
frightening.”
Her first Marie Sharp diary, No! I
Don’t Want to Join a Bookclub, was
closely followed by the delightfully
titled Virginia Monologues, listing a
string of reasons why growing old
was something to be celebrated, not
lamented.
“I’ve read books for every decade of
my life… but in my 60s I could find
nothing, so I thought I’d write a jokey
book about growing old,” she said. “I
was full of intense emotional feelings
about my grandson, so I wrote about a
woman in the Sixties in Shepherds Bush
with a grandson.”
MEXICAN RAVE
HABANERA BAGS MAJOR FOOD AWARD
MIND THE AGE GAP
She believes the relationship between
grandparents and grandchildren has
been criminally ignored in literature,
despite intriguing aspects such as the
transition from a grandchild rushing
to a grandmother’s knee for a cuddle to
the more distant, polite relationship of
grandparent and teenager.
She recalls her interaction with her
own grandmother with great fondness.
Surprisingly, her groovy granny
books, now translated into 15
languages, have struck a particular
chord with the Germans, where more
than a million copies of No! I Don’t
Want to Join a Bookclub sold under a title
which translates as No! I Don’t Want a
Senior Portion.
“The Germans have an odd attitude
to old people,” she explained. “They’re
very cherished, and treated like delicate
bone china.”
No! I Don’t Need Reading Glasses came
next, while readers can look forward
to further Marie Sharp observations in
future with the provisionally titled No!
I’m Quite Happy Standing!
The title of her latest book, Yes! I can
Manage, Thank You, emerged after her
publishers suggested she be a bit more
upbeat, and break the negative cycle of
book titles beginning ‘No’!
“I find it easier to write in little bits,”
she said, discussing the diary format of
the books. “With the latest book I had
an incredibly structured plot, so then I
just had to join up the dots.
The whole thinking behind it is that
growing up is grisly; there’s nothing to
recommend it.
Lorraine Caie (centre)
with her award-winning
Habanera team in
Uxbridge Road
>> Taco about a result! In just a year
Habanera, in Uxbridge Road, has won
Mexican restaurant of the year after
wowing judges at this year’s
prestigious Latin UK awards (LUKAS).
Owner Lorraine Caie, originally
from New Zealand but now living in
the area with her young family, said
the win was ‘simply amazing’.
“I’m still smiling,” she said. “It’s
such a big lift when you’ve been
working so hard to get open and
established and taken so many risks.”
Spicy tacos – like Habanera’s
authentic conchinita version – and
“We can all moan to kingdom come
about it… but there are some huge
advantages.
Bordering on national treasure status,
Virginia seems to have done just about
everything in her writing career, from
being a restaurant critic and Daily Mail
pop writer in the Swinging Sixties to
an agony aunt on Woman magazine,
Today, the Sunday Mirror and The Oldie.
She’s part of an elite group that
includes Marje Proops, Claire Rayner
and the Sun’s Deirdre Sanders who the
general public instantly recognise by
their first name alone, and who have
always taken their role so seriously that,
with the help of a fleet of secretaries, no
letter went unanswered.
creative cocktails impressed the
judges so much that the quirky
restaurant beat off competition from
200 entries to be among the final 12
winners, each showcasing a different
Latin cuisine.
For Lorraine, it’s a combination of
varying seasonal flavours and a
passion for staying local that has
helped Habanera to success.
“I like to think we are just right
for Shepherds Bush: something
unexpected, a little delight when you
find us,” she added with a smile.
Visit: www.habanera.co.uk
The root cause of many letters to
agony aunts is depression, sadness and
loneliness.
Virginia confesses that the one
‘dishonest’ aspect of her fiction writing
is minimising the plague of lonely
depression in later life, while her
character Marie Sharp accentuates the
joys of being alone.
“I feel depressed a lot of the time,”
she admitted. “I think most people do.
But we want to read something to make
us feel that there’s someone else who
feels like that.”
Virginia Ironside’s latest book, Yes! I Can
Manage, Thank You, is published
in hardback by Quercus at £16.99