The bittersweet comedy of ageing: Ladies’ Lunch and Other Stories, by Lore Segal, reviewed

Every family has its folklore. Apparently, as a five-year-old, I was on the floor playing when I looked up at my grandmother and told her matter-of-factly that she ‘was not the kind of granny I had been expecting’. I’m not quite sure what my foetal presumptions had been, but she is far from the hackneyed image society reserves for older women: no blankets or twee knitting for Norma. Sharp, glamorous, her face alive with mischief, she is a lady who lunches, a nonagenarian who shared stories, gossip and advice amid a riot of laughter.

She would be familiar with much of the gentle drama in this collection of Lore Segal’s stories, which revolves around five women in their nineties dining on a monthly basis together. But, unlike my granny’s lunches, Segal’s meals contain more namedrops than food, and often leave you wanting more.

Born in 1928 to a Viennese Jewish family, the author was evacuated to England on the first Kindertransport mission, aged ten, and bounced from home to home – an experience which informed her autobiographical first novel, Other People’s Houses.