The star columnist on the Observer for nearly 40 years discusses her memoir.
For nearly 40 years, Katharine Whitehorn was the star columnist on The Observer. She was the first woman to write a ‘personal’ column based on her daily life but her columns were also always about something broader. She regularly appeared on programmes ranging from Any Questions to Call my Bluff, and on Desert Island Discs Sue Lawley hailed her as the first woman to ‘have it all’. Her work engaged frankly with the realities of women’s lives – and her guide to Cooking in a Bedsitter became a bestseller. Her memoir Selective Memory is about studying at Rodean, her work on Fleet Street and her long marriage to the crime writer Gavin Lyall, who died in 2003. Katharine is now agony aunt for Saga Magazine.
