Old Age and How to Survive It

The book

Cicero remarked that old age is a strange business. No one wants to miss it, he said, and everyone complains about it when they get there…

Old age comes to us all, and Enfield wittily advises on how to survive its trickier obstacles, not least the people who suggest you must 'do something'. One of the great delights of the golden years is doing less - from giving up DIY and ambition to not inviting people to dinner.

In these elegantly entertaining essays, Enfield guides those entering their finer years on how to make the most of old age.


The author

Edward Enfield (born 1929) is an English television, radio and newspaper journalist and presenter. He is also the father of British comedian Harry Enfield and novelist Lizzie Enfield, and husband of Deirdre. He was educated at Ashbury College in Ottawa, Canada, Westminster School, London and University College Oxford. He had various jobs in industry, including with Cathay Pacific, until joining the education department of West Sussex County Council, where he became Assistant Director of Education. After overseeing the privatisation of school meals and cleaning services, he took early retirement and went on to present a radio travel programme from Ireland 1994. He then appeared on BBC television with Anne Robinson on the consumer programme Watchdog and became a regular reporter on the show. He has also appeared on Points of View, the Heaven and Earth Show, Through the Keyhole, daytime shows such as Richard & Judy and various holiday programmes.

Other radio programmes have included; Double Vision with Miles Kington, Free Spirits and Enfield Pedals after Byron in which he cycled through Greece following in the footsteps of Lord Byron.

For some years he wrote a regular column in The Oldie (for which Lizzie Enfield now writes), and has written many articles for national newspapers; he has also written several books, including 'Downhill All the Way', 'Greece on my Wheels' and 'Freewheeling through Ireland'.


The reader

Bill Wallis (born 1936 in Farnham, Surrey, England) is a British character actor and comedian who has appeared in numerous radio and television roles, as well as in the theatre.

He attended Farnham Grammar School from 1948 to 1955. He gained a State Scholarship and went to Cambridge University where he met Peter Cook. When Cook and the team took Beyond the Fringe to Broadway, Wallis took over the roles played by Alan Bennett.

Some of his most frequent appearances have been on BBC Radio 4 for The Afternoon Play and the Classic Serial, but he was also in the cast of the long-running sketch show Week Ending, and in the first episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, originating the roles of Mr. Prosser and Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz. He reprised the latter in the second episode and in one episode of the second series.

Wallis has appeared in a number of television programmes including Chelmsford 123, Doctor at Large (1971), ITV's production of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾, the first series of Blackadder (drunken knight), Blackadder II (Ploppy the Jailer), Blackadder Goes Forth (Agent Brigadier Smith) and Yes, Prime Minister. He also appeared briefly in the first episode of ITV's Midsomer Murders, apparently driving a Morgan sports car. In fact this was pushed by other cast members, as he does not hold a driving licence. He appeared in Not Only… But Also with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, alongside comedy stalwarts John Wells and Joe Melia, singing the comic song "Alan a' Dale," which students of the absurdist strand of British humour such as Monty Python will recognise. He appeared in the original London cast of the unsuccessful Andrew Lloyd Webber/Alan Ayckbourn musical Jeeves in 1975.

His film appearances include The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1997) and Splitting Heirs (1993).

He has two children by his first wife, Jean Spalding, a noted cellist