FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Bel Mooney
What are you working on at the moment?
I am working on a new memoir and a new novel.
When are you at your happiest?
When I’m at home, walking around the garden with my husband.
What is your greatest fear?
The loss of those I love most.
What is your earliest memory?
I have a very powerful memory of being a child in Liverpool and my brother and my cousin were pushing me in a pushchair near a gypsy encampment on this wasteland. They said they were going to give me to the gypsies. I cried and cried and cried. Well, you know what kids are like…
What do you most dislike about yourself?
I dislike my lack of willpower when it comes to keeping to routines like taking a vitamin pill. I do it for about three days and then I forget.
Who has been your greatest influence?
My English teacher Mr Boulding. I always loved literature, but he brought it out and he taught me such a lot. I really loved him.
What is your most treasured possession?
A photograph of my parents taken in the 1940s. They look so young and happy.
What trait do you most deplore in others?
I’m a very forgiving person so I hate the kind of intolerance that makes people unable to forgive.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My muffin midriff. I put it down to the amount of vodka and wine I tuck away.
What is your favourite book?
Middlemarch by George Eliot.
And your favourite piece of music?
Beethoven’s Sonatas for Piano And Cello.
What is your favourite film?
The Shawshank Redemption.
What is your favourite meal?
Fish, chips and mushy peas. I was brought up in Liverpool and we would go to places like Blackpool and fish and chips were a Friday night treat. My mum made great chips; my mother’s homemade chips were the best. I do love chips.
Who would you most like to come to dinner?
George Eliot, my best friend Gaynor Rea, the late Labour MP Barbara Castle and William Shakespeare.
What is the nastiest thing anyone has ever said to you?
When I was a columnist on The Sunday Times, I had a letter from a reader who said she thought my journalism was rubbish and it would never be printed if I didn’t trade on my married name. I was married to Jonathan Dimbleby at the time. What an insult! This malicious woman chose to insult my journalism and then lied that I was trading on my husband’s name, which, to a feminist like me, was an uber insult.
Do you believe in aliens?
No.
What is your secret vice?
Watching New Tricks and Midsomer Murders. I never used to watch TV apart from very serious things. Now I like sitting with my husband on the sofa and watching something completely anodyne; it’s relaxing.
Do you write thank-you notes?
Yes I do. I think thank-you notes are very important. I get cross if people don’t write me thank-you notes.
What phrase do you most overuse?
‘Oh whatever’.
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Nothing; I feel very blessed.
Tell us one thing people might not know about you.
I know a lot about Harley-Davidson motorcycles. I failed my motorcycle test when I was in my late 50s, so I made it my business to learn a great deal about motorcycles.
What would you like your epitaph to read?
‘She was kind and she was great fun’.
Bel Mooney’s Lifelines (The Robson Press, £9.99) is published on 22 September.
I am working on a new memoir and a new novel.
When are you at your happiest?
When I’m at home, walking around the garden with my husband.
What is your greatest fear?
The loss of those I love most.
What is your earliest memory?
I have a very powerful memory of being a child in Liverpool and my brother and my cousin were pushing me in a pushchair near a gypsy encampment on this wasteland. They said they were going to give me to the gypsies. I cried and cried and cried. Well, you know what kids are like…
What do you most dislike about yourself?
I dislike my lack of willpower when it comes to keeping to routines like taking a vitamin pill. I do it for about three days and then I forget.
Who has been your greatest influence?
My English teacher Mr Boulding. I always loved literature, but he brought it out and he taught me such a lot. I really loved him.
What is your most treasured possession?
A photograph of my parents taken in the 1940s. They look so young and happy.
What trait do you most deplore in others?
I’m a very forgiving person so I hate the kind of intolerance that makes people unable to forgive.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
My muffin midriff. I put it down to the amount of vodka and wine I tuck away.
What is your favourite book?
Middlemarch by George Eliot.
And your favourite piece of music?
Beethoven’s Sonatas for Piano And Cello.
What is your favourite film?
The Shawshank Redemption.
What is your favourite meal?
Fish, chips and mushy peas. I was brought up in Liverpool and we would go to places like Blackpool and fish and chips were a Friday night treat. My mum made great chips; my mother’s homemade chips were the best. I do love chips.
Who would you most like to come to dinner?
George Eliot, my best friend Gaynor Rea, the late Labour MP Barbara Castle and William Shakespeare.
What is the nastiest thing anyone has ever said to you?
When I was a columnist on The Sunday Times, I had a letter from a reader who said she thought my journalism was rubbish and it would never be printed if I didn’t trade on my married name. I was married to Jonathan Dimbleby at the time. What an insult! This malicious woman chose to insult my journalism and then lied that I was trading on my husband’s name, which, to a feminist like me, was an uber insult.
Do you believe in aliens?
No.
What is your secret vice?
Watching New Tricks and Midsomer Murders. I never used to watch TV apart from very serious things. Now I like sitting with my husband on the sofa and watching something completely anodyne; it’s relaxing.
Do you write thank-you notes?
Yes I do. I think thank-you notes are very important. I get cross if people don’t write me thank-you notes.
What phrase do you most overuse?
‘Oh whatever’.
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Nothing; I feel very blessed.
Tell us one thing people might not know about you.
I know a lot about Harley-Davidson motorcycles. I failed my motorcycle test when I was in my late 50s, so I made it my business to learn a great deal about motorcycles.
What would you like your epitaph to read?
‘She was kind and she was great fun’.
Bel Mooney’s Lifelines (The Robson Press, £9.99) is published on 22 September.