188. Jilly Cooper

12:34Jilly Cooper:Will you write about rugby next, not Sparta, please? I think it's too like football, isn't it?

12:39Rachel Johnson:Oh, you're so ambitious still. I just, I'm 86. I didn't think I could do rather, really. It's a bit cold in winter, it would be too, wouldn't it? I saw that terribly sad batch of bucks South Africa beating us, did you?

12:50Jilly Cooper:I watched it and they won by one point because there was a penalty after a scrum collapsed or turned. Ridiculous.

12:59Rachel Johnson:But the men looked very fat and large, didn't they? They all looked about 80.

13:04Jilly Cooper:It's odd how much timber they can carry if you're a rugby player. I think it's to do with the weight of the pack.

13:10Rachel Johnson:They didn't look really attractive. I was all disappointed.

13:14Jilly Cooper:Oh, that's why you're not going to write scrum, exclamation mark, because you don't think the men are attractive enough. I don't like the titles. I don't know. You see, I can see that glint in your eyes. Scrum. Julie, because I couldn't do it as well as you wrote tackle. My father played for Cambridge and he played for the army. What Leo did? My father. Your father. So you come from a rugby family. Come on, Julie. You were going to do a historical book then.

13:41Rachel Johnson:Sparta was the only place in Greece that adultery was allowed. Did you know that?

13:46Jilly Cooper:Do you know what? I didn't. But I mean, almost anything went in ancient Greece.

13:50Rachel Johnson:No, you couldn't. If you committed adultery, you got shot or thrown out. You got terribly, terribly, terribly punished, particularly for women, for women, for adultery, a court-pleted adultery. You were thrown out for the marriage. But in Sparta, you couldn't do anything you liked. I thought it was quite interesting. I see. You have a story. I must talk to you. No, okay. This is about difficult women, isn't it? Yes, we're going to get on to that. Such a bitch I was. I got the Sunday Times column. You were a bitch. I was, I was, but the column was so bitchy.

14:20Jilly Cooper:About other women or? Everybody, everybody. It was awful. Do you think that's changed? I mean, you weren't really invented the kind of so-called confessional column. It was actually more personal than confessional. And should we just remember what happened? You sat in the Godfrey's from after to lunch. I love old goddess. rest his soul

14:37Rachel Johnson:God he was a good writer he was the editor of the Colour Mifles

14:40Jilly Cooper:and just tell the story briefly for those who don't know it about how you entered journalism and then became world famous no no I just met

14:47Rachel Johnson:sat next to Godfrey in a party I was telling him about being a young wife and I said Leo said I put I can't remember put my red scarf into the washing machine and Leo's what was it Leo's no Jogstrap Jogstrap he came out yes rose pink

15:05Jilly Cooper:And you were telling the editor of the Sunday Times, that over lunch? Over lunch.

15:09Rachel Johnson:It was over dinner. He loved it. He said, well, write about it. So I wrote this piece about being a young wife. I was lucky. We just adopted Felix, my son, and we had a lovely picture. It always helps us, a lovely picture. There's a lovely picture of me and Felix. And Harry Evans sent for me a week later.

15:26Jilly Cooper:Harry Evans, the late, great editor of the Sunday Times.

15:30Rachel Johnson:And he said, would you like to write a column for the Sunday Times? I mean, from nowhere. Wasn't it wonderful?

15:37Jilly Cooper:I've got all your, I've got The Common Years, I've got Between the Covers, I've got Emily, Octavia, Harriet, all of those. I've got Rivals. And you know that my sister Julia is in a book group that only meets to read and discuss Julie Cooper novels. It's quite true. So we go back to, so you started writing this column about being a young married woman and having to do it all.

16:02Rachel Johnson:I could write anything I liked. So the first week I wrote about cricket and it was February. And so he said, no, we can't run now. And so then I wrote a piece about going away for the weekend and just about how awful it was and how always people rang up and said, we'd like to come for the weekend. But when actually the invitation arrived, you had to, I mean, it was too late. You said yes because you're so wet. And then you had to go and how ghastly it was. And the paper had so many angry letters. They filled my next week's column with angry letters.

16:36Jilly Cooper:I thought, and maybe this is a myth, that you wrote, one of the things you said to Godfrey was how exhausted you were because you worked all day in an office. You were a typist or something and you kept being sacked because you're a hopeless typist. And you worked all day in an office and you came back and then you had to clean up the house and do the washing and make supper and then have sex all night and then get up and do it all over again.

17:04Rachel Johnson:Yes, that was Leo's favourite, my favourite line of Leo's. Oh, it was wonderful. What was it? I said, darling, I said, I'm very slow. I went to my cook, moussaka. Moussaka. Oh, that's very complicated. Yes, I said, so darling, would you like moussaka for dinner, Lodge? He said, no, I'd rather you shave your bush.

17:28Rachel Johnson:What? What?

17:31Jilly Cooper:What a sweet. Was that that he didn't want moussaka? Was that him saying he didn't want moussaka or he did want you to shave your bush? Shave my bush. No! Gardening, isn't it? Yes, it is called topiary. Topiary or manscaping.

17:51Rachel Johnson:Oh, Lord. The next one I wrote was about Raga. My parents were so shocked by it. They didn't speak for about three weeks. What did you say about Raga? I can't remember. Obviously something awful, but that's probably being the bits of fancy Raga players or something. It was too far gone. But over and over again, I went to the Women's Institute. I went to all these places and I was so vile about everybody.

18:17Jilly Cooper:This is interesting that you're looking back and thinking you were vile. Because I sometimes, when you reread your columns, would you edit them now? Do you think they've stood this test of time, which I do, because they've been collected very recently into various volumes?

18:36Rachel Johnson:I just think, you know, I just can't bear hurting people now. I mean, I wrote a piece about the most boring people in the world. I started off with Mary Whitehouse, which I still think she was, but remember her.

18:48Jilly Cooper:Of course I do. Walkies. And she was the one who wanted to clean up television.

18:53Rachel Johnson:Yes, everything. People like Julie Andrews. I said it was a terribly boring. Mr. Heath, Neil Kinnock, and everybody. I said they were all terribly, terribly boring. Which I think was mean, wasn't it?

19:03Jilly Cooper:Well, actually, I interviewed Julie Andrews and she didn't give me a good line. I'm afraid I have to agree with you on Julie Andrews. I mean, she's a heroine and she's still alive and, you know, Godspeed to her. But she was quite buttoned up. I mean, they're basically all those people you've mentioned. Probably you represent the opposite of what they are. you're joyous, you're generous, you're fun-loving, you're clever, you're productive, you're prolific.

19:31Rachel Johnson:But so what? Own it. Also, I wrote a piece defending gays and saying how lovely they were. People were being beastly about them. And the gays were furious. They didn't like being defended either. So you couldn't really win. It was the worst piece I did, which I was trying to edit. Sometimes it was about 13 years. And I wrote a piece called Gone with the Wimp, saying how wet men have become. apathetically.

19:53Jilly Cooper:Well, I think you probably are right there and you probably stand by that.

19:57Rachel Johnson:That was 82. And you still think that? Well, 82, no, I said it in the Sunday Times. What's happened to my WIMP piece? Why haven't you been doing it? And my editor just said, well, we're not because all Rupert Murville henchmen are going around on the top and say, she literally got us wrong, we're not wet.

20:12Jilly Cooper:You weren't writing about them, you were writing about other men.

20:15Rachel Johnson:I thought, F it, I said I went off to the Mail on Sunday.

20:18Jilly Cooper:I see. And they wouldn't run, did the Mail on Sunday So, right, we're a town of the wimp.

20:26Rachel Johnson:Gone with the wimp. I was writing about men's lib in 69, saying to men, throw away your belts and your braces, throw away your jockstraps and go out into the marketplace and see what happens to you. I wrote that.

20:45Jilly Cooper:Men's lib. Throw away your belts and braces. So what were you saying in that?

20:51Rachel Johnson:Women were being very bossy and saying they were going to get rid of your bras and something else's wrong thing for you to wear. Why do you wear brazzles and things like that? And so I just said to them, we'll throw away your belts and your jockstrap and go out into the marketplace and see what happens to you.

21:12Jilly Cooper:Amazing. I'm interested in you feeling even remotely concerned that you were bitchy. I bet this is what made people read your columns. And there are writers around today who have also made and built reputations on being catty and cutting. And, you know, male writers too. Adrian Gill, A.A. Gill. He was good, wasn't he? He was very good, but he didn't hold back, Julie. So I wouldn't worry about it. In terms of the popularity of your books, you've said that there are always very nice characters, and not to mention animals, that you can root for, and that you love animals more than people.

21:53Rachel Johnson:Not more, just as much as loving, loving.

21:57Jilly Cooper:And there are lists and lists of animal characters in all your books.

22:00Rachel Johnson:All the books. And my favourite book in Animal and Tackle, Mrs. Grandkid. I love Grandkid. So sweet. He's so lovely. And horses, I love animals.

22:11Jilly Cooper:Finishing post. Yes. Isn't there a horse called finishing post? What's the horse called? Safety car. Safety car.

22:20Rachel Johnson:Safety car.

22:20Jilly Cooper:Safety car is such aficionados of F1.

22:26Rachel Johnson:He was such a show-off. If somebody was in the yard and nobody was taking notice of him, he would pick up the yard brush with his teeth and start sweeping it off. And he's lovely. It comes into the kitchen for some red wine. There's somebody in your books that comes in for some red wine, I think.

22:42Jilly Cooper:Almost everyone comes in. The end of Notting Hill. Oh, in Shaw Hell, the pony comes into the kitchen. You're absolutely right. I thought, that's not it.

22:50Rachel Johnson:I didn't take it from you because I didn't read it again until recently.

22:54Jilly Cooper:No, I wouldn't. I'd be honoured if you stole anything from me. I mean, as I've written in my Tatler tribute to you, when I was in my novel writing years, I had to stop reading you because I realised that all I was doing was pound shot puns that weren't a patch on yours.

23:24Jilly Cooper:You're not difficult to me because you're weapons grade charming, as India Knight wrote, who came to interview you. We're friends. We're friends. Of course. No, no, no. But I can't imagine you being difficult, but you have a flash of steel. And do you think this comes out when you're underestimated by people? For example, that bank manager who said, you know, your filthy little book. And then it went on to sell millions of copies around the world. Tell that story.

23:53Rachel Johnson:No, but it was, we were always poor. We had to nearly sell our house in London so often. And Glass saved, I read a book called Glass, and that saved off Powson Putney. And then we came down here and ran out of money. And I'd just written Riders. And the bank manager, we introduced him, took it to Princess Michael and all sorts of smart people. I gave him a lovely, lovely weekend. And he sat on the terrace drinking the last bottle of champagne on Sunday night. He said, lovely old property, this lovely old property. Shame you've got to sell it. Don't think your dirty little book writers will get you out of trouble.

24:28Rachel Johnson:But he was wrong, because it did. Horrid man. He left the bank too.

24:33Jilly Cooper:Well, living well and having huge success is the best revenge, Julie. It is. Isn't it? All right. Why don't we move to the moments, rather than you being difficult, you've said you were a bit bitchy. If there's anything more you want to say about whether you're difficult, I'd like to move on to your difficult times.

24:50Rachel Johnson:Yes. Anything difficult is that I do 15 drafts of everything. So the house, I won't tell you my study next door, but I mean, I disappear under a mass of papers. Will we be allowed to see Monica? Oh, Monica, yes. Darling, Monica. Monica's getting old like me, but her typing is very pale grey now rather than black. Monica is your... What brand of typewriter is it? I don't know what she is. I've typed everything since Rivas, everything. And would you ever write a book on anything other than Monica? Well, I've tried to because she gave up the ghost recently, but she's come back again now. I've got one called Erica.

25:32Jilly Cooper:So it's difficult to have writing 15 drafts of each book isn't quite what I had in mind about your difficult times.

25:40Rachel Johnson:No, no, difficult times. Difficult, a panning train crash, that was pretty horrible. I was on the train and suddenly keeled over and burst into flame and everything. So I was called out of that. A lot of people died around me, but I was lucky and I survived.

25:54Jilly Cooper:I can't remember what year that was. Was that in 1980? 80-something. I remember you being in it.

26:01Rachel Johnson:My children rushed up from the country bringing the dog and I wouldn't be worried. It was so lovely. Did you have to go to hospital? No.

26:12Jilly Cooper:Gosh, you were lucky, Jilly. Did it change the way you looked at life?

26:17Rachel Johnson:I thought life was much more precious. I thought I've got to be happy for every single minute of life. It doesn't make you feel like that. But it was horrid. It was horrible. I'm just trying to say, awful, difficult times, difficult times. But of course, Leo dying is difficult. My lovely husband, 53 years. And he was, I mean, he writes wonderfully, friendly.

26:37Jilly Cooper:He was a publisher. And in the house, I see that you've got the Stanislaw Lifts and those obviously left when Leo was getting up and down. And he was here. He had advanced Parkinson's like my mother is, you know.

26:52Rachel Johnson:Right, that's probably the thing. Leo's Parkinson's up is the worst thing because I got to the end of it and said, please, God, take him. And then he felt totally guilty. Horrible disease. But difficult things. I'm trying to think, what else?

27:03Jilly Cooper:We've talked about that. Bad review. Oh, no, Jilly, you've never had a bad review. I've had lots of bad reviews. But that can't be the worst thing that's ever happened to you. No, no, no.

27:11Rachel Johnson:Worst thing.

27:13Jilly Cooper:Well, you've mentioned almost dying in the Paddington train crash and Leo.

27:18Rachel Johnson:I think it was quite, quite, quite, quite bad not being able to have children as I longed and longed and longed to have them. And then when they adopted these fantastic children, they didn't have to go through all the awful pregnancies. It was wonderful. But that's pretty horrid not having children. And then month after month after month, it doesn't happen. I think that's difficult. I haven't had a difficult life. I'm not going to talk about Mrs. Johnson either.

27:43Jilly Cooper:No, no, no, no, no. Don't worry about that. She's gone. But also you forgave her, I think, or you got a nice Christmas card from her or vice versa. I think so, yes.

27:53Rachel Johnson:And first Mrs. Cooper, I became friends too. I mean, she died recently and she bought her greyhound to see me, which was nice. Because that was one of the most difficult things when Leo came back soon after we got married. Leo dropped his daughter off and he came back absolutely miserable. I said, darling, you were right. You were right. What's the matter? He said, oh, she looked under her eyelashes and I wanted to light mad.

28:22Jilly Cooper:For those, I mean, because this is a podcast, people can't Google. We've just got to explain who Mrs. Johnson is and it's not my mother. Just gloss Mrs. Johnson and then we will move on.

28:35Rachel Johnson:Leo's first wife was incredibly glamorous. Well, he was very attractive, Leo. He was attractive and she was absolutely gorgeous. and when she left him and so he was terribly sad when he met me and I hoped I'd cheered him up but that was when he had a four-year-old daughter and he had delivered back to her and he came back from his first wife and said, I said, darling, what's the matter? And he just said, she looked at me under her eyelashes and I'm afraid I wanted her like mad.

29:01Jilly Cooper:What was your relationship like with his daughter, Jilly?

29:05Rachel Johnson:It took time. Yeah. Now we love each other. This takes time. Have you got stepchildren? No, but I am a stepdaughter.

29:13Jilly Cooper:And it's a... It's tricky, isn't it? Well...

29:17Rachel Johnson:Well, she nice to you.

29:20Jilly Cooper:Very nice. Very, very nice. That's the thing you've got to say. You can't, you see.

29:27Rachel Johnson:If you're having a row with somebody, you want to say they're an absolute fucking bitch.

29:33Jilly Cooper:Well, families are complicated. And you entered a broken family and you created your own family of great happiness. And actually, when you were talking about adoption, I was thinking weirdly, because I knew I was coming to see about adoption yesterday, how much I love my own nephews and nieces as if they're mine. And I was thinking as soon as a child is born, it doesn't really matter that it's not your flesh and blood. It's yours. And you can have developed just as warm and closing a bond with that child as you do with a child that comes from your egg and your husband's sperm. You really can.

30:10Rachel Johnson:I think you can. And also, I must say, a person I really, really don't like, I'm afraid, is Davina McCall. Oh, why? Because she has this programme about finding your parents. And I just think if children are quite happily living in an adoption society, if suddenly they rush up and want to find their real parents, it's quite disappointing for everybody.

30:29Jilly Cooper:And by the way, somebody I was talking to this week said that the new laws around being able to find sperm donors have meant that men are not providing sperm. And it's making IVF harder and it's making the whole system of actually getting a sperm donor much harder than it used to be.

30:50Rachel Johnson:There's one in Zelda that had 800 children from his sperm. So they're bound to marry each other, aren't they? That's a thought for you.

30:58Jilly Cooper:Yes, it is. I think if I had the energy and half your energy and drive, Julie, I would think about either writing about rugby or about sperm donation. I know, Jilly, I need you to be my agent. I will be. So we've gone through your difficult times. You've got your new book coming out. You can't talk about Rivals, which is going to hit our screens when?

31:21Rachel Johnson:I think 2004, 2024. I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope. But everything's very sort of, we've only done half of it.

31:32Jilly Cooper:It sounds very exciting. So everybody mark your diaries for that. Oh, and speaking of diaries, Jilly, are you still keeping diaries and are you ever going to publish them?

31:40Rachel Johnson:Well, puppets are common ears.

31:42Jilly Cooper:Well, I know, but those are, yes.

31:44Rachel Johnson:I've said to my darling children, I said, they're all upstairs, millions of them upstairs. I said, do you want to be embarrassed and rich or not embarrassed and poor? Because if you don't want to be embarrassed and poor, I'm out. So if you don't want to be embarrassed as you read my diaries, because they would be horrified.

32:04Jilly Cooper:What would they be horrified by? What I put in it. But do you think that your sex life is a matter of horror? No, not a matter of sex life.

32:13Rachel Johnson:Or your feelings about other people? Everything. I mean, everything and what I write about. I mean, the things I write about people, they've been, the gaster woman's gone now, things like that. About them occasionally too. I'm furious with them and slagging them off. And also the things I got up to in the time, because everybody got up to a lot, didn't they?

32:34Jilly Cooper:Well, I know it does sound so much more fun than nowadays, Jilly, the 70s in Fulham.

32:39Rachel Johnson:They were. And the 60s too. Because I got married in 61. Everybody had fun.

32:45Jilly Cooper:Was that a particular something to do with Fulham or something to do with the 60s?

32:50Rachel Johnson:I think it was something to do with the 60s. Everybody just jumped in.

32:53Jilly Cooper:But even if they were married, not in Sparta as it were. Yes. But what do you think about the fact that people have to get divorced now rather than just simply...

33:04Rachel Johnson:They've been living in court for now, aren't they, on the telephone?

33:06Jilly Cooper:and it's no fault but you can get divorced. No, but what my question is, do you think that what, do you think as a society along with Me Too we've become more prudish and more judgmental?

33:17Rachel Johnson:I don't know. I mean, you can't say anything really about anybody so I don't know how you can create.

33:23Jilly Cooper:I think that Tackle, I think Tackle is a 400 page poking fun actually in a most wonderful, joyful way at woke because a lot of it is about, you know, the safety committee or something at the club. And the way you make very clear that you think everything has gone too far and life has become far too joyless.

33:45Rachel Johnson:I think that's true. I think, because I love one of my favourite characters in the book called Ludo. And they get a health person or a counsellor that the players can take their mental health problems to. And Ludo says, well, they can take their anxieties to. Ludo just said, well, my anxiety is whether she's going to make it with me or not.

34:07Jilly Cooper:I've got a son called Ludo. Have you? Yes. Jilly, listen.

34:12Rachel Johnson:Leo, it was Leo, haven't you?

34:13Jilly Cooper:Everyone's got an O. Boris's son's called Milo. My son's called Ludo. My husband's called Ivo. And my brother's called Leo. So people can't cope at all. Oh, dear. But Jilly, thank you so, so much for being this week's Difficult Woman. I can't tell you how much joy it's given me to come here and do it in your house. In your, no Jilly, your home. Terrible word.

34:41Rachel Johnson:It's terrible. Lovely home. She's got a lovely home. Now you'd say she's got a lovely home, wouldn't you? Yes.

34:48Jilly Cooper:I guess we would. We would, but nobody else would and we'd get cancelled.

35:07Jilly Cooper:so sad yet so merry to hear her voice again we're going to try and find the video and upload that but in the meantime I think I should just end by saying this let's all be more jilly bye

35:25.