INTERVIEW
Back in the saddle
After a seven-year hiatus, Jilly Cooper, 86, is back with a new novel and an upcoming TV series. Here she talks about football, her late husband’s jokes and having the PM as a fan
by COLE MORETON
‘I am
nervous,’ says Jilly Cooper, shuffling on the sofa. ‘I haven’t done an interview for centuries.’ It’s not quite as long as that but the queen of the bonkbuster – as she was crowned by fans of her rip-roaring, steamy stories – is about to publish her first novel in seven years, called
Tackle!
‘There’s not so much sex in this one,’ she confesses. ‘I’m 86 – I’ve forgotten how to do it.’ There is a sadness behind what Jilly says. ‘I haven’t got a husband now. I’ve always only been able to write about things I could experience.’
That husband, Leo, died at the age of 79 in 2013, having lived with Parkinson’s disease for a long time. ‘He was ill for 13 years, we had carers living in all that time,’ Jilly says softly. ‘It was horrid when he died, because he was so lovely. The walls of the little church in the village were absolutely groaning, getting all the people in for his funeral. He was very popular, very funny. The children and I were all sad, but in a way I think he needed to go, because it’s a horrible illness.’
Tackle! is set in the breathtakingly wealthy world of football and does actually have a few moments to set the pulse racing, but it is a different kind of companionship that Jilly seeks now. ‘I do miss Bluebell, she was heavenly,’ the author says of her rescue greyhound who also passed away two years ago. ‘She was just a lovely dog and she always took up nine-tenths of my bed. When Leo was gone, Bluebell used to sleep on one side and I would sleep on the other.’