Tag Archives: make do and mend

Desiree Holt – the world’s most prolific author of erotic romance

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~ Meet 76-year-old grandmother Desiree Holt: the world’s oldest author of erotic romance, with over 100 steamy novels and ebooks to her name and counting. .

Silver-haired Desiree Holt qualified for a free bus pass in 1996, but has spent her retirement writing over 100 “scorching-hot” sexually explicit novels and e-novels to the delight of fans around the world.

Until now, many readers believed the bestselling author of such steamy works as “On the Prowl” and “Carnal Caresses” was a buxom heroine like the ones featured in her books — released by British erotic romance specialist Total-E-Bound Publishing.

But Holt — whose ‘behind-the-bedroom-door’ stories often involve kinky sex play such as bondage, dominance and threesomes — has decided to come clean about her age.

Holt, who cites the runaway success of British author EL James’s number one bestseller Fifty Shades of Grey as helping the genre gain mainstream acceptance, said: “When I first started writing, erotic romance was still looked down on by many people as nothing more than a form of porn.

“But the incredible popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey
has really opened readers’ minds to the genre, to the point where it’s fine to admit that I am a pensioner in my mid-seventies who just so happens to write about passionate, erotic relationships.

“I’m one of Total-E-Bound’s best-selling authors of this genre and the demand for my books is growing all the time. I think that’s because erotic romance is a powerful form of fantasy — women, and men too, can read it and imagine themselves in place of the characters, doing and feeling things they might be too shy about in their everyday existence.

“Many readers have told me that my stories give them confidence to spice up their sex lives, experiment and express their sexuality. I guess in that respect I’m a bit like an agony aunt, only more graphic.”

Claire Siemaszkiewicz, founder of digital publishing company Total-E-Bound, said: “Desiree has been with us for four years now and in that time has become a firm favourite with readers.

“We believe she is the oldest writer of erotic romance in the world, but I’m sure none of her fans will be concerned with her age. The quality of the stories and characters is the important thing to them, not how many candles the writer blows out each birthday.

“If anything, Desiree should be seen as an empowering figure in the fight against age discrimination. There’s no reason why sex should be taboo for older people.”

Born in 1936, mother-of-three Holt carved out a successful career for herself in journalism, PR and music management — looking after a number of small-time rock bands — before retiring in 2000 at the age of 64.

At first she planned to spend her golden years fulfilling a life-long ambition to write mystery novels — but became “hooked” on erotic romance after buying a “racy” novel to see what it was like.

With the full support of late husband David, Holt “threw” herself into the underground sex scene to research what would be her first erotic romance novel, 2007’s Candy Caresses, joining online forums for the BDSM (Bondage, Dominance, Sadomasochism) and LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) communities.

Since then she’s published 105 novels, novellas and short story collections, building up a network of regular contacts ranging from mistresses, swingers, and fetishists to Army soldiers — for her latest book, Unconditional Surrender.

Last year, she even visited a bondage club at the age of 75 to gain a better understanding of the worlds she writes about — though, she insists, as “an observer only”.

She is now believed to be the world’s oldest author of erotic romance.

She said: “The inspiration for the stories comes from every place and research is always ongoing. I based the hero of one book on my doctor — simply because he’s so sexy.

“Another book, my novella All Jacked Up, I wrote for my son, because I wanted him to settle down. It’s about a man reaching forty who’s still waiting for the woman of his dreams only to have the most unexpected female walk into his life. I think he appreciated my motherly concern.

“Though I’ve not tried all the things I write about, I do find them all fascinating — far more so than traditional granny pursuits such as knitting. I’m treated well because I respect everyone as individuals, regardless of whether they express their love through kisses and cuddles or whips and chains.”

Holt, who lives in Texas, US, says that though her family refuse to read her books, they approve of her writing and affectionately call her the “Queen of Hill Country Erotica”.

But, she adds, there will always be some people who find her choice of career “distasteful”.

“I was nervous in the beginning because, while my kids are all adults, I am still ‘Mom’ to them and therefore shouldn’t know this kind of stuff. But they are my biggest supporters and brag about me a lot. Even my 20-year-old granddaughter thinks it’s exciting.

“But I do live in a very conservative community and occasionally someone will look at me as if I have a contagious disease when I reveal what I do.

“I always tell them that maybe they should read one novella and see that it’s really not what they think. At its heart, erotic romance is still about exploring characters’ relationships and emotions — the sex just helps reveal the intensity of their feelings.”

Desiree Holt’s latest novel, Unconditional Surrender, is available now from Total E-Bound Publishing. Visit www.total-e-bound.com

Making ‘Make-Do-And-Mend’ Sociable Again

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The make-do-and-mend movement is back. When the recession began, clever marketing people at John Lewis dug out and republished a 1943 governmental booklet on how to darn socks and re-patch roofs using wastepaper. World war two kitsch was duly rekindled there has been since 2009 an unrelenting stream ‘make do and mend’ media output. Channel 4 a launched a ‘Make Do And Mend’ TV show advising viewers on how to have fun with frozen vegetables. Joan Bakewell has recently joined the celebration of frugality with an article in last week’s Telegraph, describing valiant efforts to deliver parcels by hand.

 

Yet modern make-do-and-mend lacks the defining feature of its 1943 counterpart. The earlier version came out of the war effort and was predicated on a sense of community spirit born out of a need for help on the home front. Food was scare so city dwellers pulled together to turn parks into vegetable gardens. Clothes were rationed so women ran up their own or darned holes in what they had. However, these activities took place in the context of pre-existent community structures like church groups, knitting circles, the Women’s Institute, and the Women’s Royal Naval Service which made skill-sharing easier and reduced costs. The acquisition of a new skill takes not only time but patience and we are far more likely to succeed within a supportive social framework than of we go it alone. Watching someone whip up a pair of curtains on television is not the same as being shown how to do it first hand. At the very least, observes Joy Pite from the Wanstead Women’s institute, ‘in a social setting, there’s more incentive to complete the task’.

 

Modern make-do-and-mend is the DIY craze of the 90s clothed in rather more frayed robes, due to an absence of community space. Most neighbourhoods during World War 2 had thriving churches and community centres, which made for strong and intergenerational social networks. These days people are working longer hours, spending their free time online, moving around more and therefore feel a decreased sense of affiliation with those in their physical surroundings.

 

This is what the organisers at Heathrow Grow are trying to remedy in the London suburb of Sipson. Heathrow Grow is predicated on the idea that cost-efficient and sustainable living requires somewhere for people to meet regularly and face to face. ‘It’s a lot easier to demonstrate things to people than it is to explain them’ says Alex, one of the project’s architects, ‘and it’s a lot cheaper to organise things as a group’. Built on an acre of land that was once an abandoned plant nursery, Heathrow Grow consists of a thriving vegetable garden and two greenhouses that have been transformed into workshop space. Its organisers have set up free classes on the basic principles of growing food, how to maintain a bicycle and even how to weld.

 

The Heathrow Growers have worked hard to convince the people of Sipson that community spirit is the key to the making daily life not only cost-efficient but ecologically sustainable. They have promoted the project by handing out free vegetables at the village market and have successfully involved themselves in the local Residents’ Society, Allotment Society and Young People’s Society. Local residents frequently come by make use of the facilities on offer or just to hang out and the site has proven particularly attractive to “N.E.E.T.S” looking to pick up new skills. ‘It’s great here’, explains Dan, an unemployed resident of Sipson who has recently become involved with the project. ‘I help out with the gardening. And it’s nice to have somewhere to potter around’.

 

Although the political outlook held by most of the project’s participants does not cohere with that expressed by the current government, Heathgrow Grow actively embodies many of Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ values. According to the the government’s online mission statement, the ‘Big Society’ exists to ‘give individuals more power and responsibility and use it to create better neighbourhoods and services’. Since Heathrow Grow has done far much more than the make-do-and-mend-movement to make this happen, those of us hoping for not only more financially efficient households but also the revival of flagging community spirits look forward to seeing more like it.

 

 

Plans to build a third runway through Sipson threaten Heathrow Grow’s continued existence. Its fate will be determined at Central London County Court on 18th and 19th June 2012. Sign their petition at: http://www.transitionheathrow.com/grow-heathrow