The Joy of Six 1035

Katy Balls reports Tory disquiet over their prospects in the North Shropshire by-election: "Despite Paterson holding the seat in 2019 with a majority of 22,949, senior Tories have expressed concern over the vote while the Liberal Democrats are talking up their prospects. One senior Lib Dem source has told the Times that they have put money on a victory for their party."

While Ian Dunt detects the formation on of an informal, organic anti-Tory strategic arrangement.

Adam Ramsay on his public school days and the building of upper-class solidarity: "I haven’t lived with my parents for any significant period since I was 13. Some, if they also went to ... ‘preparatory’ (prep) schools, left home at eight or nine. If you suspect that this is likely to lead to insecurity then institutionalisation, then you’d be right."

"I have now taken all identifiable details off my CV. Anything that could give an employer a whiff of my age has been wiped, and only my work over the last 10 years remains visible. It makes me sad that after all of my years of hard work, this is what it has come to." Anonymous writes on ageism and the difficulty of job hunting in your sixties.

"The story of how Richmond and Twickenham - and particularly Eel Pie Island - became a seed-bed for the British R&B bands that, in conjunction with the Mersey Beat, reset the course of rock music is such a great one that I’ve often thought it was worth a proper book, particularly after I came to live here 20 years ago and realised that the buildings and the pavements had tales to tell. I never got around to it. But now someone else has, and he’s done it so well that I’m glad I didn’t." Richard Williams welcomes Andrew Humphreys’ Raving upon Thames: An untold story of Sixties London.

Jade Evans examines how Dirk Bogarde's image was crafted for the fans and how his publicity portraits nevertheless give us glimpses of the life of a very private movie star.