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As the former editor of the ‘Erotic Review’, Rowan Pelling explains why Jilly Cooper’s champagne-fuelled, hedonistic spirit and unabashed emphasis on flirtation was her generation’s presiding spirit. Few could surpass the mischievous wit of a woman whose genius was often underestimated
T
he “Queen of the Bonkbusters” is dead. Let the bells toll and the organ of every British cathedral thunder out “Galloping Home”. Jilly Cooper wasn’t just a writer to the millions who adored her; she was a symbol of something profoundly British and endlessly comforting. Cooper’s fictional county of Rutshire, based on her own beloved Gloucestershire, conjured up rolling hills, fetlocks, labradors, Agas, cocktail hour, rogues called Rupert, sweet girls called Tiggy, al fresco orgasms and laughing in bed. Or what the writer Caitlin Moran once described as “sex Narnia”.
