About Me

An only child of two arty parents, (Professor Janey Ironside and Christopher Ironside) I attended my great aunts’ dame school as a day girl aged three and stayed until I was sixteen. I am very glad I never went to university. I started off my working life as a temporary secretary to Dame Shirley Williams at the Fabian Society and then worked at Vogue, followed by the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail (as a rock columnist), Woman magazine (as an agony aunt), then the Sunday Mirror, Today and the Scottish Daily Post. I then worked as a weekly agony aunt for the Independent for twenty years. I now have a regular agony column with the Oldie magazine and also the Idler. I’ve also written around twenty books, enough books to merit the title of “author” (!) so if you’d like to buy any on-line, feel free. You’ll find details about all of them on the books page.

You can find out all about my childhood by reading Janey and Me.

Where am I at the moment? Single, 80, with one son, who, having played in the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain (www.ukuleleorchestra.com) for over thirty years, now makes custom-made ukuleles and composes music (willgrovewhite.com). I’m very, very lucky, in that I have two wonderful grandchildren and I’m still working. Like most people of my age, I don’t fear death, but fear getting mad, incapable and gaga.

The years after being 60 (until, perhaps 80 when the usual physical horrors took hold) have, no question, been the happiest years of my life. That’s why I wrote No! I Don’t Want to Join a Bookclub, a fictional diary of being sixty and a grannie, then a couple of others in the same series and finally, the latest, No Thanks! I’m Quite Happy Standing!

In the summer of 2009 I put myself on stage at the Edinburgh Festival in my show called Growing Old Disgracefully. I performed it around the country for the next ten years.

I have suffered from depression and anxiety all through my life and am amazed that I’ve got to this great age.