Alice Whaley
THE OLDIE
I have been a contributor to The Oldie Magazine, both in print and online, since 2017. I began my work with them as an intern, and have continued to write for them ever since.
FAWLTY TOWERS ON THE MED
September Issue [Print Only]
"The Hurricane Hotel in Tarifa, Spain, should be renamed Fawlty Towers on the Med. The three Whaley brothers – my father and his two brothers – are three Basil Fawltys and there are lots of guests and staff called Manuel."
THE JOY OF BLACKBERRY-PICKING
"It is the God-given right of any blackberry to make its way into a crumble (accompanied by its old friend, the good British apple) and, if that crumble warms bellies after sundown, so much the better."
COUNT YOUR LIFE IN THE BOOKS YOU'VE READ RATHER THAN THE YEARS YOU'VE LIVED
"Our way of calculating how many ‘years old’ people are is reductive and, frankly, unhelpful."
LET'S NOT BE AFRAID OF VIRGINA WOOLF
"Woolf, like Dickens, Joyce, and so many others, has been praised too much. Her work has been read and re-read, criticised and celebrated to the point where one feels underqualified to read a Woolf novel for fun."
FROM CAMBRIDGE TO TARIFA, AND BACK AGAIN
"I am still bewildered by my parents’ decision to move to AndalucÃa in their twenties. Unlike Gerald Durrell, I didn’t get to witness the making of this decision. Just months after being born in Cambridge, I was whisked away on a plane to our family home."
A ‘YOUNGIE’ AT THE OLDIE: A WEEK’S WORK EXPERIENCE
"I suppose I should have guessed that I’d like the people here; given that, when I bought my first Oldie, I read it cover-to-cover overnight."