The Oldie

TELEVISION

Growing up on a farm, I learned to detest the outdoors as a place of pain and boredom.

That boiling summer of 1976, when there was no water and lavatories were not to be flushed – I was heaving hay bales about; then corn stooks. This was Glamorganshire, but it was like southern Italy.

The weather was always against you, with droughts ensuring nothing grew or non-stop rain meaning wheat and barley rotted in the

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Oldie

The Oldie12 min read
History
Viking, 464pp, £20 In this follow-up to his 2021 bestseller Empireland, wrote Andrew Marr in the Times, Sanghera ‘tries to understand why the modern British display such amnesia about their forebears’ vast, world-changing project.’ Although the book
The Oldie14 min read
Pursuits
WELSH WONDERS On a recent cold and blowy afternoon, I spent a few hours in a series of greenhouses, sniffing exotic scents and marvelling at the sheer abundance of flowering bulbous plants. I was just a mile from the National Botanic Garden of Wales
The Oldie3 min read
Apocalypse Now?
Are we all doomed? A lot of publishers seem to think so. The only question, it sometimes seems, is whether it's going to be climate change, another pandemic, or murderous Terminator-style Artificial Intelligence that finishes us off first. But a hand

Related Books & Audiobooks