The Summer of a Dormouse: A Year of Growing Old Disgracefully [Paperback]

"The time will come in your life when the voice of God will thunder at you from a cloud, 'From this day forth thou shalt not be able to put on thine own socks'". So writes the playwright, novelist and erstwhile QC, John Mortimer. And as a septuagenarian, he is writing from experience. But it's not the effort it takes to put on socks, or the need to use people as props to stop falling over, or the sad fact that one may be compelled to buy a "Decorative Window Film" to prevent against walking into glass doors that Mortimer objects to. "The real trouble with old age", he says, "is it lasts for such a short time". The Summer of a Dormouse is a wickedly funny journal in which Mortimer wryly observes the absurdities of old age. After all, "No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous". And Mortimer freely admits he often does. Such as the time he unintentionally pirouetted down some marble steps after getting out of a hotel bathtub and crashed into a set of shelves. "I fell amongst splintering glass and a hailstorm of cotton-wool buds, aware of a torrent of destruction". However, in spite of his partial immobility, failing eyesight and frequent tendency to topple over, Mortimer deals with his increasing decrepitude with formidable fortitude. Even a death threat fails to faze him: "Some one's offering to kill me--why on earth should they bother?" Sharp and dark, The Summer of a Dormouse is an upbeat account of a man not afraid to stare mortality in the face. --Christopher Kelly --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

'Charming, intelligent, cheerful, mellifluous, gossipy and wise. Buy it for Christmas' - Fay Weldon, Mail on Sunday

'Charming, intelligent, cheerful, mellifluous, gossipy and wise. Buy it for Christmas' - Fay Weldon, "Mail on Sunday". John Mortimer recounts an extraordinarily full year in his life, which includes working on films, raising Lottery money for the Royal Court, chairing the committee that will decide on the new Trafalgar Square statue, having lunch with old lags in prison, and harrying New Labour. Public and private, poignant and frank, "The Summer of a Dormouse" is a vivid testimony to the pleasures and pains of old age.

Sir John Mortimer was born in 1923. He created the character Rumpole of the Bailey, and wrote a bestselling trilogy of political novels featuring the politician Leslie Titmuss. He has also written many TV adaptations, including Brideshead Revisited and Cider with Rosie, and two volumes of autobiography. He lives in the Chilterns, near Henley.