The radio is usually on in our house – sometimes in the kitchen and the sitting room, and sometimes upstairs as well, or the car when we’re driving somewhere. The majority of times it is on BBC Radio 4, and as I was driving home the other day, I just caught the last part of a programme called ‘Screenshot’. The programme was suggesting that “older women-younger men relationships are still raising eyebrows”
From Norma Desmond to Mrs Robinson, the older woman has long been a provocative icon of cinema. And older woman-younger man relationships are still raising eyebrows and garnering headlines, thanks to recent films like Babygirl, Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy and Marty Supreme.
Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode look at what happens when the woman is older in an age gap relationship, and ask – why is the older woman still such a provocative proposition? Ellen speaks to critic and cosmopolitan older woman Anne Billson about the evolution of the older woman through film history, from Sunset Boulevard to Something’s Gotta Give. Mark talks to actor Anne Reid about her controversial first lead film role, in 2003’s The Mother – about a sexagenarian grandmother who starts a relationship with her daughter’s boyfriend, played by Daniel Craig.
It is interesting that even in today’s society where many people feel uninhibited by convention in so many areas, It is perfectly normal for the male partner in a relationship to be older, whether a year or so or much more. My dad was six years older than my mum, one uncle was seven years older than my aunty, another uncle was eight years older, and only one was younger than his wife. In fact, I’m four years younger than my husband. Of course these age-gaps aren’t huge, unlike that between Anne Reid and Daniel Craig’s characters in ‘The Mother’. I’ve never had any boyfriends younger than me, and in fact I can only think of one couple among my friends where the wife is older by a couple of years.
I suddenly realised something I actually and obviously already knew, although I hadn’t seen it in this way before (very stupid, I know) My novel “Loving Judah” has this as a central theme, and yet when I wrote the blurb, this is what I put:
The tragic death of Aislin McManus’s adored step-son Judah is a catastrophe; the fact that his father, Peter, blames Aislin almost breaks her heart. Her attempts to mend the breach between her and her husband are failing and when Aislin meets someone else who is blamed for the death of his best friend she resolves to do everything she can to reconcile him with his family, even though she puts herself in danger by doing so.
I think anyone reading the blurb – especially the extended blurb on the back cover would immediately realise (as my character Aislin didn’t) that a relationship other than ‘just friends’ was bound to develop, between her and the man who meets who is fifteen years her junior. However, Aislin insists (and pretends) that there is no romance developing between them, although all the other characters can see it only too clearly. Was I so immersed in Aislin’s character that I couldn’t see it either? Obviously I knew her feelings for him, but the relationship I thought I was developing between them was a friendship with him. I published it fourteen years ago, so it’s difficult to clearly remember what I thought I was doing!!
Here are links to the paperback and to the e-book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LOVING-JUDAH-LOIS-ELSDEN/dp/B08RLHZHD8
https://www.amazon.co.uk/LOVING-JUDAH-LOIS-ELSDEN-ebook/dp/B00A4LJW7C
If you are interested in the radio programme which triggered these ramblings, you may be able to find the programme on catch-up here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002q363
Lois Elsden 