The Oldie

The idea for the Oldie was cooked up 25 years ago by its founding editor, Richard Ingrams, and his much-lamented successor, the late Alexander Chancellor. Their aim was to create a free-thinking, funny magazine, a light-hearted alternative to a press obsessed with youth and celebrity. The Oldie is ageless and timeless, free of retirement advice, crammed with rejuvenating wit, intelligence and delight. With over 100 pages in every issue, The Oldie is packed with funny cartoons and free-thinking and intelligent articles covering a wide range of topics – from gardening and books to travel, arts, entertainment, and so much more.

The Oldie

Among this month’s contributors

The Old Un’s Notes

NOT MANY DEAD • Important stories you may have missed

JEREMY LEWIS PRIZE FOR NEW WRITING 2026 How to enter

GREAT BORES OF TODAY - THIEVES

Bring on the End of the World! • Does it really matter? After all, Planet Earth has been through it all before

My heart bleeds for exiled billionaires • If they must leave, I’ll give them a helping hand

OLDEN LIFE

MODERN LIFE

Private Widdle’s major talent • So skilful, so loved, so unhappy… Stephen Fry salutes a new biography of Charles Hawtrey

Mind your manners • Schools are saving children from rude parents.

Noises off • Ruth Talbot used to hate her husband’s snoring. Now he’s died, she longs for it

My marks for Spencer • His moving book about Diana has some easily avoidable howlers

On the tour buses • The golden age of bus tours went into decline in the 1970s. Now they’re back.

My big Daddy • Catriona Olding’s father was brought low by being seven foot four

The invisible woman • When you marry a famous actor, you suddenly disappear at parties.

What the Dickens? • While Caitlin Davies was working at the Dickens House Museum, a long-lost treasure emerged from the writer’s desk

King Reggie of Suburbia • On Leonard Rossiter’s centenary, Peter Dyke salutes the wit and wisdom of Reginald Perrin

In my bad books • When a set of Trollope books were stolen from his shop, Matt Lincoln tracked down the thief

Grandpa, the German war hero • William Cook’s grandfather was in the Wehrmacht - but saved a Jewish friend’s life

The real Friar Tucks • Medieval monks were supposed to avoid self-indulgence. In fact, they grew fat on vast feasts.

Meal to end all meals • Fifty years ago, celebrity chef Fanny Cradock destroyed her career on an Esther Rantzen show

Take a leaf out of Everyman’s Library • On its 120th birthday, this model publisher is still going strong

What a swell party! • Mary Killen asks the greatest events-organiser how to make the evening go with a swing

Bunny Girls’ tales • Gloria Steinem hated working at the Playboy Club. My friend loved it, says Mary Kenny

Miracle of the phone-free classroom

I made a pig’s ear of our Baltic trip

Lost in the Cleethorpes maze • Why does my hairdresser live in the local Bermuda Triangle?

East or West? My home is best

Mary’s Eliza Doolittle days

Hollywood Guide to the Peasants’ Revolt • A new film distorts the past by imposing modern obsessions

Pray for the crime victim - and the criminal

Sir Ralph Robins (1932-2026)

A little learning is a dangerous thing • A new Alzheimer’s test could make you worry unnecessarily

READERS’ LETTERS

Oleg Gordievsky

When Louis Armstrong lost his trumpet

Marshal arts

Rocky road

Royal Colditz captive

Greek god of wisdom

Oxford view

Trigger points

Commonplace...