Bisley: N.p., 1997-2017

A large collection of TLS on Cooper's personal stationery, in a variety of colours. Occasional corrections and additions in Cooper's hand. Envelopes not present. Faint folding creases from postage, but a well preserved collection.

A LARGE COLLECTION OF TLS COVERING A PERIOD OF TWENTY YEARS, WRITTEN BY JILLY COOPER TO JOHN JONES, THE PURCHASER OF HER CHILDHOOD HOME, CHARTING THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CLOSE FRIENDSHIP, DISCUSSING COOPER'S WORK, AND FULL OF GOSSIP AND ANECDOTES ABOUT THE GREAT, THE GOOD, AND THE NOT SO GOOD.

When Jilly Cooper's mother Mary Sallitt died in 1997, her large seafront flat in Chichester Terrace, Brighton, was sold to John Jones, a retired drama teacher at London's Central School, and his partner George Hall, who had been the school's Principal. On 17 July 1997 Jilly Cooper wrote to the new owners to welcome them to their new home:

'I just wanted to say how very happy I am that you've bought my mother's flat, because she was such a darling, and I gather via the agents that you are very nice and I know she would love to have nice people living there.

It's a darling flat. I've had so many very happy memories of it and the view of the sea at all times of the year is absolutely breathtaking. So I do really hope you will be really, really happy there. And maybe in years to come, if I were in Brighton, I might just be able to give you a ring and literally just pop in for two minutes, just to say hello and just pat the walls, because the flat did mean a huge amount to us.'

It was the first letter in what would become a twenty-year correspondence: increasingly affectionate, unfailingly gossipy, and packed with detail about Cooper's life, marriage, writing and friends -- up to and including the Royal Family.

Many of Cooper's letters are given over to discussion of the letters she's received from Jones (giving a gratifyingly full picture of both sides of the correspondence), and there is much talk of arranging meetings in Brighton, meetings often thwarted by Cooper's writing and publicity schedules. There is detailed discussion of the TV police soap The Bill, of which both correspondents were big fans. Pet peeves of Cooper feature strongly -- Sylvia Plath ('I've always thought she was the most tiresome woman.'); folk music ('There's something about the word Folk Music that makes me want to run screaming into the woods.'); and the whole of Austria ('..they are terrifyingly Nazi that lot.'). Pets themselves feature strongly too, as Cooper's well-known love of animals was shared by Jones.

On 14 June 2005, Cooper writes to report on the wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles, which had taken place in April. A close friend of Camilla, Cooper had attended the wedding at Windsor Castle:

'It was lovely from start to finish. Because darling Camilla and Charles had such a ghastly time in the run-up and such appalling press and such an [sic] appalling luck, and everybody thinking the whole thing jinxed. But from the moment one arrived, people came scuttling up in a rather cold car park [...] but what was so lovely, was the absolutely palpable feeling of relief on all the staffs' faces and on all the congregation and on all the guests at the party, that it was going so well. Everybody thought it would be jinxed and it wasn't and the wedding was simply beautiful.'

As time goes on, the rigours of ageing becomes a regular theme. Cooper finds the publicity responsibilities around her book Wicked! (Transworld, 2006) both a physical strain and an unacceptable demand on her time given the failing health of her husband Leo. Falls, niggling injuries and ailments accumulate; increasingly, the deaths of friends and family members are mourned. But Cooper remains indomitable, and writes warmly of her first meeting with David Hockney: '[H]e's marvellous, you would love him so much, if you don't already know him. He's just funny and wise and so kind.'

Leo Cooper died in November 2013; there are no letters between February 2013 and March 2014. The last letter in the collection is dated 6 April 2017: 'It was heaven being 80. I wish I could do it every day. I had such a heavenly time.' John Jones developed dementia, and died in 2023; Jilly Cooper died in 2025, at the age of eighty-eight.

Dictated to Cooper's personal assistant, typed on her personal stationery (with Cooper's name worked in to a number of different dog designs down the years) before being addressed and signed by Cooper herself, the correspondence bears witness to a long and close friendship, and is shot through with Cooper's warmth, wit, and unfailing optimism and good humour.