rivals

on bonkbusters

Hello! savour members can now listen to the audio narration of these letters, simply scroll down beneath the paywall.

Before I went on mat leave I ordered all of the Rutshire Chronicles through the publisher I worked for at the time. They sat glinting - thick doorstopper spines in pristine white - among the muslins and other soft things we had accumulated for the baby. But my plans to sink into 1980s equestrianism and excess never arrived. I found myself reading Wolf Hall in the early stages of labour, instead. The novels were tucked behind a sofa. Then, 18 months later, something shifted: the other night I crept into the baby’s room and retrieved one as he slept. Rivals. Red stiletto, curl of film, Jilly Cooper’s name in beige-gold capitals.

I’ve had a flurry of texts about her recent months, ever since the news about the new TV adaptation broke. Somehow, I’ve earned a reputation as a fan, although the truth is a little more complicated. While I’ve never been ashamed of my affection for her novels, it’s been 15 years since I read one. During that time I’ve met Jilly Cooper (quite fittingly, at the annual lunch hosted by The Oldie magazine; I was the youngest person on The Telegraph arts desk and sent in to get stories. The room was full of elderly A-Listers, and I barely recognised any of them; the whole thing could have been lifted from one of her novels) and even received correspondence from her. My brief encounters with Jilly Cooper have a kind of glitter that doesn’t shimmer from other celebrities I’ve met. Still, now, a lightbulb memory of standing on a street in Mayfair and listening to a voicemail she had left me: “Darling child, it’s Jilly Cooper”.