Why Kate Fenton is examining love affairs among the over-50s in new novel

North Yorkshire-based novelist Kate Fenton’s new novel The Time of Her Life is her first after a period of writer’s block. Sue Wilkinson reports.
Whitby author Kate Fenton prepares to release her new book. Picture: Richard PonterWhitby author Kate Fenton prepares to release her new book. Picture: Richard Ponter
Whitby author Kate Fenton prepares to release her new book. Picture: Richard Ponter

When it comes to love striking in more mature years, novelist Kate Fenton knows what she is talking about and has used the first-hand knowledge to write her first book in 18 years.

The Time of Her Life centres on 60-year-old Yorkshirewoman Annie Stoneycroft, her match-making and her own love affair.

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It is a witty, perceptive romantic comedy written from the heart – with more than a nod to Jane Austen’s Emma – and with the relief that the writer’s block which dogged her for nearly two decades has been overcome.

“Embarking on a novel is like crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope: the moment you stop you are lost,” says Fenton. “You have to keep going. I lost confidence and kept falling off in the middle.”

Her husband of eight years, the actor Ian Carmichael, star of Lord Peter Wimsey and Scarborough-set The Royal, died in 2010 leaving her bereft.

Nine years on she is in a much happier place. New husband Ed is a GP in Middlesborough, and her seventh novel The Time of Her Life has been published.

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It was a chance remark by her husband that inspired The Time of Her Life. He saw a newspaper article about sexually transmitted diseases galloping among the over 50s. “I was working for the BBC in Wales and trotted it out in a meeting about new productions and they all thought it was amusing. But actually it set me thinking that the over-50s really are out there dating and thought ‘look at me, I have found a new partner’.

“It is interesting: it is a completely different dynamic. When you are young it is bringing your boyfriend to meet the parents. It is more unnerving bringing your girlfriend or boyfriend to meet the kids when they are themselves adults,” says Fenton.

She met her husband when she was in her late 50s. He asked her to train his spaniel Alfie and, despite the dog chewing to bits her best Italian sweater, leather shoes and a sofa, romance thrived.

Her ability to train dogs was picked up from one of the  many displacement activities she explored while suffering writer’s block. While researching her sixth book Picking Up she needed to know about grouse shooting. She went beating with the gamekeepers and was still involved eight years later. She also joined the board of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough.

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The couple have been together for eight years, married for three years, and the Carmichael side of the family have fully embraced Fenton’s new love. From her marriage to Carmichael she has two step-children, five grandchildren and eight great grandchildren. One of her grand-daughters got married from their home in Grosmont in North Yorkshire.

Love, she says, is different when you are older. “It is the same kind of insanity you feel when you are 17, but it is much clearer. When you are 17 you don’t know what you are going to be, what you are going to do or how love fits into your life.

“When you reach this age you know who you are and know what you want,” says Fenton and then from the rafters a voice shouts: “I knew what I wanted. It was a lot clearer.”

One of the things she wanted was to stay put in her beautiful home, in the countryside on the outskirts of Grosmont, which over looks the River Esk.

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“One of the most generous things Ed did was to agree to live in what had been my marital home. It was an act of extraordinary generosity on his part. I know that is not easy. When I came to join Ian here he was widowed and this was his and his late wife Pym’s house. I was grateful because I am deeply rooted to this area, I love it, and did not want to move. We have made the house our own and changed it a lot,” she said.

An avid reader, Fenton wanted to be a writer though she did not come from the sort of family where it was on the tick-box list: nursing and teaching were.

After leaving Oxford, she worked for a short while as a researcher in the House of Commons for a Member of Parliament.

From 1978 to 1985 she was at the BBC and worked on Pick of the Week, Woman’s Hour and Bookshelf. She completed her first novel The Colours of Snow in 1989.

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“I have always been in awe of writers. It seemed miraculous when I got published,” she says.

The first draft of her eighth novel is done and in a drawer ready to be worked on.

“I would not be enjoying the publication of this one if I had not got beyond ‘once upon a time’,” she says. “I always hoped I would write another book or what is the point of me if I don’t.”

Previous novels set in Yorkshire

Lions and Liquorice (1995) was set in a North Yorkshire village where a TV production team is filming a new series of Pride and Prejudice and romancing some of the locals.

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Too Many Godmothers (2002) is also set in North Yorkshire and focusses on Miss Theodora ‘Teddy’ who runs a catering business and has been recently jilted by an MP.

Picking Up (2002) – after moving from Wilmbledon, suburbanite Jo Patterson is finding it hard to adjust to life in a rural Yorkshire village.

The Time of Her Life is published by Hodder & Stoughton and is out now.

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