INTERVIEW
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
‘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.’
For now there are no animals in her beautiful ten-bedroom house in the depths of the Cotswolds countryside except the many stuffed toys, paintings, statues and other images of dogs she has around the place. ‘My son Felix has two dogs, my assistant Amanda has one, so I see lots of dogs, but I’m desperate for one myself,’ she says.
What’s stopping her? ‘I said I would wait until I handed in the new book, then I could concentrate on a new dog. I did hand it in but then 15 months later, I was still rewriting it. So I haven’t got a dog. As soon as I get one, my life will change completely.’ Tackle! took so long because the publishers wanted some changes to fit in with modern sensibilities. The book is funny though, and Jilly clearly enjoys writing about Wags – as the wives and girlfriends of footballers are known.
Fans will be delighted that it features a man who has been in Jilly’s life for more than half a
