Culture
The Oldie Magazine
Travel: Retreat From The World
For his new book, Nat Segnit visited Britain’s quietest monasteries and islands to talk to monks, hermits and recluses
5 min |
July 2021
The Oldie Magazine
What is... a nail house?
Don’t confuse a nail house with a nail parlour. A nail house is an old house that survives as new building development goes on all around it.
2 min |
July 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Kent's stairway to heaven
Walter Barton May’s Hadlow Castle is the ultimate Gothic folly
4 min |
July 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Pursuits
Pursuits
10+ min |
July 2021
The Oldie Magazine
The book that changed the world
On Marcel Proust’s 150th anniversary, A N Wilson praises his masterpiece, an exquisite comedy with no parallel
6 min |
July 2021
The Oldie Magazine
RIP the playboys of the western world
Charlie Methven mourns his dashing former father-in-law, Luis ‘the Bounder’ Basualdo, last of a dying breed
5 min |
July 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Arts
Arts
10+ min |
July 2021
The Oldie Magazine
My film family's greatest hits
Downton Abbey producer Gareth Neame follows in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and great-grandmother, a silent-movie star
8 min |
July 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Books
Books
10+ min |
July 2021
The Oldie Magazine
A lifetime of pin-ups
Barry Humphries still has nightmares about going on stage. He’s always admired the stars who kept battling on
7 min |
July 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Travel: Exmoor Ecstasy
In lockdown, Londoner Ivo Dawnay moved to Somerset’s coombes and moors. Now he never wants to leave this Garden of Eden
5 min |
June 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Virginia McKenna, the African queen
At 90, the actress is still saving the wildlife she fell in love with, filming Born Free, over 50 years ago. By Roderick Gilchrist
6 min |
June 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Renaissance miracles
For over 300 years, Italian painters produced the finest altarpieces in the world, says David Ekserdjian
5 min |
June 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Thank heaven for Leslie Caron
She starred in Gigi, danced with Fred Astaire and acted opposite Cary Grant. Hugo Vickers meets the great actress as she turns 90
10 min |
June 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Dearest Diana
Christopher Balfour fondly recalls a hilarious trip to New York with the princess, who would have been 60 on 1st July
3 min |
June 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Sex-mad DH Lawrence
His amoral wife made the jealous writer think sex was a tragedy. By Frances Wilson
5 min |
June 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Overlooked Britain: A philanthropist's palace
Heroic American steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie paid for 3,000 libraries and built glorious Skibo Castle in his native Scotland
5 min |
June 2021
The Oldie Magazine
I was a teenage Marxist
Bruce Anderson was bewitched by Marxism – until he saw the IRA at work in Northern Ireland
4 min |
June 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Churchill's mommie dearest
History hasn’t been kind to Jennie Churchill, who died 100 years ago. But the New Yorker was her son’s greatest influence. By Anne Sebba
6 min |
June 2021
The Oldie Magazine
How Mr Tickle Tickled The World
Fifty years after they began, Mr Men books have sold 85 million copies. Teacher Kath Garner pays tribute to the brilliant adman behind them
4 min |
The Oldie magazine - April 2021 issue (398)
The Oldie Magazine
The best sermons ever
This Easter, vicars shouldn’t be obscure or arrogant in the pulpit. Like Jesus, they should be funny, says Reverend Peter Mullen
4 min |
The Oldie magazine - April 2021 issue (398)
The Oldie Magazine
When the Hurricane hit Liverpool
Alex Higgins smoked, boozed and gambled as he met a delighted Gary Smith
2 min |
The Oldie magazine - April 2021 issue (398)
The Oldie Magazine
Gainsborough in London
The Suffolk painter is best known for his rural scenes – but his last years in the capital were the pinnacle of his career
3 min |
April 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Suffering for her art
Tortured by love, longing for children, Elizabeth Bowen poured her pain into her exceptional novels, says her friend A N Wilson
4 min |
The Oldie magazine - April 2021 issue (398)
The Oldie Magazine
The gripes of Roth
As a new biography appears, director Tristram Powell remembers working with a writer who could be kind – and scarily cruel
6 min |
April 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Gyles Brandreth's Diary: Appointment with death
After 30 years of double vision and headaches, I finally visited a neurologist and learnt the truth...
4 min |
The Oldie magazine - April 2021 issue (398)
The Oldie Magazine
Wizards from Oz
A wave of brilliant Australians came to Britain sixty years ago. They included Clive James, Germaine Greer – and Barry Humphries
6 min |
The Oldie magazine - April 2021 issue (398)
The Oldie Magazine
Pilgrimage to 84 Charing Cross Road
A New Yorker’s letters to a London bookshop were a big hit 50 years ago. Valerie Grove accompanied her on her first visit to Marks & Co
6 min |
April 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Chips with extra sauce
Chips Channon was the ideal political diarist – truthful, vulnerable and gossipy.
6 min |
April 2021
The Oldie Magazine
Gregory Gregory's Stately Pleasure Home
Harlaxton Manor has been home to a millionaire Victorian recluse, a face-cream tycoon and an American university
4 min |