Diana Athill and Molly Parkin: Two legends nowhere towards the end



Molly Parkin (left) and Diana Athill. Pic © Laura Lockington

 
Here's a very special and exclusive picture of two legends who met last week for dinner in London: Molly Parkin, close on 79, and retired premier UK literary editor and latterday celebrated memoirist Diana Athill, 93 in December.

I shall be reviewing Molly's extraordinary memoirs Welcome to Mollywood next week. Diana - who is an honourable exception to my general bar against Dianas - won the Best Biography of the Year at the Costa Book Awards 2008 for her frank memoir Somewhere Towards the End at the age of 91. The judges described the work as: 'A perfect memoir of old age – candid, detailed, charming, totally lacking in self-pity or sentimentality and above all, beautifully, beautifully written.'

Both Molly and Diana represent an amazing (re-)flowering of talents at ages usually treated as infirmity. Molly is writing at the height of her powers; her erotic novels will be reissued next year; and she's putting on her one-woman show at Ronnie Scott's on November 24 (on stage at 8pm).

In Somewhere, Diana reveals, among other things, that she preferred black men as lovers (least boring...): and for more details you'll have to buy her book. She describes atheism as, 'vastly more exciting and beautiful than any amount of ingenuity in making up fairy stories', a thought that went down well with fashionable secularists of the British intelligentsia raised on science drip-feeds.

Well, I didn't say Diana was wise. But at least, and unlike a lot of other Dianas, she does not whine.

Horney in Australia: Dealing with the Down Under

I think the UK ignored the Arcati tale about London publishers bidding for Australia fundraiser queen Marie Sutton's Princess Diana letters, but someone called Andrew Horney (great name) on the Sydney Morning Herald picked it up. The Horney didn't credit the source, but I'll set him an example and link Horney here. Do watch it, it could prove instructive. It contains a universal message. I'm all heart, ain't I?

'The Diana Papers' - UK publisher in purchase bid

Marie Sutton

I learn that a UK publisher is trying to secure the so-called "Diana Papers" from Australia's fundraising queen Marie Sutton.

The Papers are a collection of letters between Marie, Kensington Palace and Diana about her last visit to Australia, plus a load of letters from politicians, government ministers and officals etc trying to wrest the project away from Marie. But in the end Marie is triumphant as a kind of co-host for Diana's visit after Diana intervenes.

The hundreds of letters have been bound and put into a chronological order: what emerges is a great tale about the intrigues and backbiting behind a high society event. In addition, there are exclusive photos (never published) of Diana's supposed grave on the island at Althorp that Marie took when Earl Spencer gave her a tour ("a pile of sad looking muddy dirt" I am told).

My own feeling is it would make a marvellous movie, in the satirical vein of In The Loop.