No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a Sixtieth Year - Softcover

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Virginia Ironside is a journalist, agony aunt, and author. She served as an editor for Woman and the Sunday Mirror for many years, and has regular columns in The Independent and The Oldie. She has written books in children's and adult fiction, nonfiction, self-help, and memoir, and is published worldwide. She lives in London.

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October 3

OK. This is it. About fifty years too late, butbetter late than never. A diary. I know it's not January 1st, or even November1st, but there is no time like the present. Don't we always say to ourselves:'If only I'd written a diary when I was twenty? Or thirty? Or forty? But in mysixtieth year (or fifty-ninth, to be precise – or, oh God, maybe it ismy sixtiethyear – I remember some tedious man explaining to me recently how eventhough I'm fifty-nine, I'm actually in my sixtieth year, totallyincomprehensible, but I finally gave in), anyway, in whatever year it is, I,Marie Sharp, retired art teacher, divorced, one son, one cat and resolutelysingle after about one million failed relationships, am determined to give it afinal crack. A diary, that is. Not a relationship.

Oh dear me no.

I wrote my first diary when I was ten. Riveting stuff. 'Got up. Went to school.Had maths – ugh! Came home. Did prep. Had supper. Went to bed.' I startedanother when I was a teenager, but that was when I had a crush on Archie, whowas a year older than me and had no idea of my feelings. I still have aboutfour exercise books covered with the words 'I love Archie', 'I LOVE Archie!', 'ILOVE ARCHIE!!!' on every page. On the cover of one of them is a huge crimsonheart with 'ARCHIE' emblazoned on it.

I remember when David and I were married and had our son,Jack, we kept a joint diary, but that was just full of lies because we eachknew the other one was going to read it. I had to keep a separate, secretdiary, because I felt so miserable about the whole marriage. In our joint diaryI wrote: 'Great day! We all went to the Round Pond with Jack and came back totea with Hughie and James. Lots of jokes and a splendid tea!' In my private oneI wrote: 'I just can't stand David and his horrible relations. I can't bear theway they all feel like a secret society I'm not part of. I want to be free! Iwant to dance! I want to have affairs!'

Of course, shortly after that, I did, and David and I brokeup, but oddly we stayed friends. (Anyway, God knows what he was writing in hissecret diary.) I also, even odder, stayed friendswith his half-brother, James, and his partner, Hughie. AND I stayed friendswith Archie, even though I never had an affair with him. When he marriedPhilippa, I was at his wedding, and we've had lunch every so often over theyears. It turned out that his firm in the City used Hughie as his solicitor– he works in something mysterious called 'futures' – so, as sooften happens, all my friends made a complete circle.

I didn't have time to keep a diary when I was at art school, or doing teachertraining, and it's only now I'm sixty – well, I will be in a few months– that I'm going to give it a go. I mean, properly give it a go. So...

October 8

Woke with watery eyes. Very bad sign. I meanit's OK to get them on a cold and windy day, or when something terrible hashappened like flu and you think you've got ME and will never be able to so muchas walk to the shops again, let alone lift up a telephone to moan to a friendabout being unable to walk to the shops again. But to get watery eyes for noreason – ugh! I know a man of seventy whose eyes water so much he has adrip permanently on the end of his nose. It is, I fear, a sign of age.

It's like the time when I went to Dr Farmer recently with pains in my knees. 'Atouch of osteoarthritis, Marie,' she said. 'Happens at our age.'

When I explained that it couldn't happen to me because I never take any exercise andtherefore my knees ought, in theory, still to be in perfect nick, the knees ofa ten-year-old, barely used, exceptionally low mileage, one careful lady owner,I could probably even dig out the original box and receipt, she explained itdidn't work like that.

Rather a bore.

October 10

Have just come home, gasping with relief, from adinner party. I was hoodwinked into accepting the invitation because my oldfriend Marion rang using the well-worn trick: 'What are you doing on Thursday?'and instead of saying, cautiously: 'Why?', I fell into the trap.

'Nothing,' I said.

Clunk.

I suppose the odd dinner party can spring a wonderful surprise. And Marion, beingsomething of a wonder woman – like cheese, she's always on a board– has been known to produce interesting guests. But generally dinnerparties are like the lottery. You rarely win. The problem is first of all thereare never enough men, and, by now – middle-aged, I was going to say, butperhaps the phrase 'getting on' might be more accurate – the men who doattend are always spare for a very good reason: they are either completelyhopeless or completely mad.

(I'm not sure that description doesn't apply to most men, actually, whether they'respare or not, which is really why I've ended up so committed to being single.Doesn't mean some men aren't funny, sexy, kind and fascinating, but you can beall that and hopeless and mad at the same time.)

The second problem with dinner parties is that, as you get older, you don't –well, I don't – actually want to meet anyone new. There are quiteenough people I know whose friendship I would like to consolidate – andother people's favourite people are very rarely my favourite people, and viceversa. The only new people I do want to meet are young people. But all old people wantto meet young people. We fall on them like vampires.

I remember myself, when about seventeen, being mobbed by men and women who, atfifty, seemed ancient. 'Do let me sit next to you!' they'd say, floppy lipsworking over tobacco-stained teeth set into receding gums. 'I do so love youngpeople!' And I would cringe as they hovered close, sucking into my youth,slavering over my peachy, blooming skin, my sadly immature views, myeverything.

'Do tell me why you like the messy look!'

'Why do you like young men with long hair?'

'Do explain the Beatles to me – I do find them fascinating.'

'Don't you find mini-skirts rather cold

Do tell me – what is this ''generation gap'' we hear so much about these days?'

Nowadays, I don't blame them, though I'd never be so overt in my own craving for the company of the young.

Yesterday I was talking to one of my best friends, Penny, and told her that yet anotherfriend of mine had died – Philippa, actually, the wife of Archie who Ihad a crush on when I was a teenager. (She's the fourth to pop off this year. Ihave actually attended no fewer than five funerals since January.) And she saidthat six of her friends had died in the last eighteen months.

'The awful thing is,' she said, 'that now we just have to make do with the people who are left!'

'Unless,' I said, 'we cultivate young people.'

'Which we don't!' she said.

Well, I have to say I do, though the admission feels as sinful andhorrifically honest as getting up in an AA meeting and saying I'm an alcoholic.I mean, who is there going to be left when all around drop like leaves fromtrees in autumn? If I'm not one of the early droppers, I certainly don't wantto be hanging around on a bare branch, flapping away all dry and brown andlonely. I want some nice young green shoots around me.

Marion and her husband, Tim, live in a poky little Edwardian house in West London,still decorated with the Laura Ashley wallpaper that had once looked so prettyin the sixties. They are one of a group of friends of mine who seem to live inrock pools – their sitting rooms could be scooped up, transported to theGeffrye Museum and displayed, along with beautifully preserved Elizabethanparlours and Georgian music rooms, as typical examples of mid-twentieth centurystyle.

The moment I entered the room (awash with grey heads) I knew I was in trouble. Youarrive at 8.15 and there is no way you can leave until after 11.00. Dinnerparties can be...