The Oldie

VIRGINIA IRONSIDE

I don't want any presents

Q I’ m over 80 this year and I know that on my birthday everyone will ply me with presents – I'm so lucky! But I'm in the business of throwing everything away, not hoarding more stuff. So how can I insist that no one give me anything? Do you think I should suggest they give money to a specified charity? It seems rather presumptuous – but do you have any other ideas?

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Oldie

The Oldie4 min read
The Picnic Bible
The joy of the picnic has always seemed peculiarly British. It isn’t simply eating outside — barbecuing in the ‘yard’, as the Americans do — but the act of packing up an entire meal and transporting it to some distant location to eat alfresco. It gai
The Oldie2 min read
Arise, England
Faber, £480pp, £25 The Plantagenet dynasty began with Henry II, who saved his country from anarchy before passing it to his largely-absent son Richard. But between 1199 and 1399, it was their half-dozen successors who —often despite themselves — put
The Oldie4 min read
Dressing Down
In 1978, a few days before she won the Booker Prize for The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch came to lunch. She and her husband, John Bayley, were good friends of my mother and my stepfather, James Howard-Johnston, a Byzantine historian at Oxford. I was 14

Related Books & Audiobooks