Kathy Lette looks back: ‘Older women are invisible, so I make sure to do something outrageous every day'

The Guardian

9 hours ago

Born in 1958 in Sydney, Kathy Lette burst on to Australia's literary scene in 1979 with Puberty Blues. Co‑written with Gabrielle Carey, the irreverent portrait of teenage girlhood became a cult classic, a film and a TV series. Relocating to London in the 1980s, Lette has worked as a columnist, television writer and campaigner, and has published a string of bestselling comic novels. She lives in London and has two children, Julius and Georgina, with her former husband, the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson. Her latest novel, The Revenge Club, is out now.
When I was 19, I was in a band called the Salami Sisters. As well as the occasional gig in a pub, we'd busk. The problem was, we kept getting arrested. I was furious. How come we were getting arrested for singing, when actual rapists were running free? My sister was a police constable at the time, so one day I borrowed – stole, really – her uniform and went out busking, performing send-up songs about the police. Fortunately, I didn't get arrested for impersonating an officer. I'm a woman with the courage of my convictions, but I don't particularly want to go to prison. Mainly I just wanted to blow some raspberries at the police, which I happily did.
Before busking, I was a surfy girl who spent a lot of time with surfy boys. While their blond hair, blue eyes and incredible ice-cream cone physiques were beautiful, they were emotional bonsai. You had to put fertiliser on them to get any feeling out. They were incredibly sexist, too – all brawn and no brain. So by the time I was 16, I was over good-looking guys and obsessed with creative geniuses instead. Specifically, Spike Milligan. I loved his books – Puckoon, Adolf Hitler: My Part in His Downfall – and knew all of his poetry by heart.
When I got news he was touring Australia with a one-man show, I ran away from school, to the horror of my mother, who was a headmistress. Along with my girlfriend, we hitchhiked across the country, relying on the kindness of passing serial killers to get us from Adelaide to Melbourne to Canberra. I would wait for Spike in hotel foyers, and bombard him with poetry and songs. He couldn't get rid of me, and in the end adopted me. He even wrote it on the back of an envelope: 'I, Spike Milligan, adopt Kathy Lette as my unofficial daughter.' I was crazy in love with him, and he could have easily taken advantage of that, but he didn't. It was love from the neck up, and often a little like having a sugar daddy, without the sex: me and my girlfriend were sleeping rough at the time, so he'd put us up in hotel rooms.
Spike was always adorable, but some days he was so blue. If I could go back to that time, I'd try to talk to him about his depression. Perhaps I could have helped him, in exchange for all his kindness to me. Instead, on the days he was down, I'd sing to him. Sometimes that would depress him even more, other times I like to think it jolted him out of sadness.
Spike was the first adult who took me seriously as a writer. At that tender age, all a writer craves is reassurance. I'd been sending my work to publishers for more than a year and received a whole forest of rejection letters in the form of patronising put‑downs from Conan the Grammarians – those men who've been at university for so long they've got ivy growing up the backs of their legs. Spike was their antithesis. Thanks to his encouragement, I wrote Puberty Blues. The book became a huge success and, much to my amazement, around the time this photo was taken, I went from overnight nonentity to overnight notoriety. It was quite a rollercoaster ride.
A lot of parents banned their kids from reading it because it was about the sexist brutality of surfy culture and sexual initiations – in fact, Kylie Minogue, who is a friend of mine, says she read it secretly in bed at night with a torch. My mother only recently told me how many death threats and anonymous phone calls she got saying, 'You call yourself a teacher when you've raised a slut like that?' Luckily, she didn't tell me at the time. I would have been devastated.
I have come to realise that there is nothing more powerful than a girls' night out. Swinging off a chandelier with a cocktail between your teeth is cheaper and more fun than therapy. Without it, without your girlfriends, you can lose your identity. The closest I came to feeling like that was when I had my first baby. I was walking through Harrods with my mum, saying, 'I think I'm back – I feel like I'm getting my brain back.' I proceeded to pick up a perfume spray and spritzed it on my neck. After walking around the entire department store, I realised it was actually white foam and I was covered in it. She said, 'Not quite back yet, darling.'
Whether it's puberty, motherhood or menopause, I always write the book I wish I'd had when I was going through it. The only time I didn't do this was with my son. He is autistic, and I didn't want to invade his privacy, so I didn't write about him until he was 21 and had given me permission to. I regret that in a way, because it's always better to shine a light into a dark corner than to ignore it. Seeing the positive joys of neurodiversity, and seeing the stigma taken out of autism, is so wonderful, but that's only because people talk about it now.
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The next battle is sexism and ageing. After 19 books published in 17 languages, my publisher dropped me. In fact, all the publishers I approached with The Revenge Club said, 'Nobody wants to read about middle-aged women.' One publisher even said to me, 'Middle-aged women are like Sudan or Mogadishu. We know they exist, but nobody wants to go there.' I kept thinking, 'But all of my women friends have such an incredible hinterland. They've had divorces, breakups, promotions, betrayals, affairs, breakdowns, and have so much wisdom and wit. Who wouldn't want to read that?' It turns out I was right, because the book was a bestseller.
When you get to 50, a man becomes a silver fox, whereas a woman is a hag, a bag and a crone. There's a cloak of invisibility just when we enter the peak of our productivity. I am 66 now, and always say to women: have a sensational second act. You are in your prime, even if society says you're not. You're in your sexual prime, as well. But don't necessarily go for an alpha male. I've realised – as an alpha – I need a beta. Which I have. He is a classical guitarist, who adores me. He cooks, he cleans. He is nurturing and kind and happy. I've had two alphas now – two fantastic ex‑husbands – but it's lovely to be taken care of.
In so many ways I feel this is the best time of my life. There's so much to look forward to, plus no period cramps, no pregnancy scares, and all that tampon money to spend. I make sure to do something outrageous every day – tonight I'm wearing a tiny black miniskirt and black boots to a party. It's not escaping the law by any means, but it's one small way to go forth and be fabulous.