QUEEN of the bonkbuster Jilly Cooper may be 86 – but she is still full of mischief and has an obvious disdain for snowflakes.
The racy novelist insists that she has no time for political correctness, branding today’s woke culture “a bore”.
She even “sulked” when publishers pushed her to make the female characters in her latest offering Tackle!, set in the world of football, more empowered.
Spirited Jilly defied the bid, but admits there was one surprise element she did tone down in her new title — the sex.
The author, whose husband of 52 years, Leo Cooper, died a decade ago, reveals that is “because I can’t remember how to do it”, and adds: “I am so old now, 86. Writers should write about things they know about.”
Despite reining in the raunchy antics of her characters on paper, Jilly — whose steamy 1988 bestseller Rivals is being turned into an eight-part Disney Plus series — still has that unmistakable glint in her eye.
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Half way through our interview, she gets up and goes searching for a copy of Tackle!.
After trawling her packed bookshelf for a couple of minutes, she triumphantly holds one up, showing off the cover image of a woman slipping a red card into the shorts of a somewhat aroused male footballer.
The book is published by Bantam, which boasts a cockerel as its logo.
What Jilly finds so amusing is that, on its spine, the company symbol conveniently covers the fella’s modesty.
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She says: “Bantam over the c***. I noticed that the other day.”
Many books, films and TV shows seem to be getting less steamy.
‘I like broad shoulders’
But Jilly isn’t buying into the trend.
The first naked torso to feature on the cover of Tackle! was not hunky enough for the mum of two, so she insisted it was changed.
She says: “We had great tension about the cover of Tackle! because I said the body was wrong.
“At the start, the waist was much wider and the shoulders were much narrower. I wanted a lovely, strong, masculine waist.
“I like very broad shoulders and a narrower waist. Better now, lovely, lovely.”
There was a similar battle over the cover of her 1985 novel Riders, which originally had a male hand patting a woman’s bum.
When it was toned down in 2015, there was “woke” uproar.
Jilly says with a sigh: “I don’t know why they took the hand off the bum.
“Political correctness is a bore, isn’t it?”
There is, though, nothing dull about the legendary romance writer.
Jilly is never shy in sharing her opinions about the feminist #metoo movement or the famous people she has met.
And refusing to bow to new fads has served her well since she published her first novel, Emily, in 1975.
Readers lap up her tales of back-stabbing and bed-hopping.
Stars including Alex Hassell, Aidan Turner, David Tennant, Danny Dyer and Emily Atack have all signed up to appear in next year’s TV adaptation of Rivals.
In the sure-to-be-steamy show, two broadcasting titans will go to war over a woman.
But Jilly hopes that modern sensitivities about filming sex scenes will not put a damper on the cast’s performances.
The author is clearly opposed to intimacy co-ordinators, whose job is to apply red tape to red hot encounters between actors.
She says: “They have intimacy co-ordinators to help them along.
“Can you imagine that? Having to have sex and some bossy boots says, ‘Put that there and put that there’. It would be awful.”
Jilly, whose latest novel has dominated the fiction charts over the past two months, objects to woke campaigners targeting entertainment.
She spent a year resisting efforts to feminise Tackle! and insists that men should be masculine.
Jilly, whose novel Riders was also turned into a TV series in 1993, says: “Every time you see women on the telly now they are so bossy and dominant.
“Men have to be much more submissive, which I think is a shame.
“I like the sexes to cherish each other, to appreciate their good qualities. Men are a lovely sex and they ought to be strong and confident.
“Women ought to be confident as well.”
Her new book includes a cat named Mewtoo, which is a sly dig at the #metoo movement.
While the women’s rights campaign has seen a lot of dangerous predators brought to book, the careers of some have been ruined, despite being cleared of wrongdoing.
Jilly says: “I think it is terrible when women suddenly come out of the woodwork saying, ‘He jumped on me 20 to 30 years ago’, and they get prosecuted.”
There was a lot of toing and froing between Jilly and her publishers over what would appeal to a modern audience.
Her defence of rugged male characters met with some resistance.
She reveals: “They wanted lots and lots of it changed. They wanted the women characters to be stronger.
“They wanted much more conversation between the women, the Wags to appeal to women readers. It was fairly acrimonious. I got very cross. I did sulk a lot.”
In the end, Jilly got her way, because the blokes certainly share equal billing.
But she did agree to take some things out.
Jilly says: “I had a bombing on a flight with six of the players coming back from an international match.
“They all died and my publishers said no, that was too anti-Muslim.”
But it’s not the only way the romance writer would appear to be at odds with 21st-century publishing.
The main character in 11 of her novels, including Rivals and Tackle!, is an upper-class love rat called Rupert Campbell-Black, whose jobs have included being a minister in the Conservative government.
She keeps bringing him back because she “loves” him.
You also will not find many literary types getting excited by the current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak.
Jilly says: “I think politicians are awful. In my day they used to be lovely, but now I don’t think they are.
“But Rishi Sunak is handsome, isn’t he?”
The PM has previously revealed he is a fan, and in this week’s Spectator magazine he said that he has a copy of Tackle! on his bedside table, having been sent a signed version by the author.
There are a couple of signs, though, that Jilly has mellowed with age.
As well as featuring less sex, Tackle! introduces readers to a kinder Rupert than they saw in Riders.
‘Redford didn’t like me’
Jilly, who had a newspaper column for 13 years, regrets being mean about some people and that is reflected in her leading man being softer.
She explains: “I think some people can get nicer as they get happier in life.
“When I had my Sunday Times column in 1968, I didn’t care what I wrote about anybody and I was beastly.
“So I made my characters nicer.”
It would be unfair to portray this well-spoken daughter of a brigadier merely as a conservative voice.
Having adopted two children, Felix and Emily, she is concerned about the treatment of kids left in care homes.
And her escapist romps poke fun at class snobbery, often ridiculing public school bores and social climbers.
Tackle! takes aim at the absurd behaviour of preening footballers and their other halves.
The novel was inspired by a chat she had with former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
She recalls: “I sat next to him at a lunch party. I was a bit scared because I thought he would be fierce, lion-like.
“But he was much more like a yellow Labrador, he was very friendly and giggly.”
Well known as a horse lover, Jilly has also become a huge fan of her local team, League Two side Forest Green Rovers in Gloucestershire, and current Premier League champions Manchester City.
And she thinks England stars Phil Foden, Jack Grealish and Marcus Rashford should be celebrated rather than criticised.
She says: “I love Grealish and Foden.
“Poor Rashford, he’s having a horrible time at the moment.
“He goes to his birthday party with his family and they’re cross because they think it’s not the right thing to do after losing a match.”
Jilly, however, is not a fan of either former US President Donald Trump or Hollywood heartthrob Robert Redford.
When she met Trump in the Eighties, she says “he just looked at me and went, ‘oh’ and walked off”.
Meanwhile, she reckons Redford mistakenly believed she wanted to “get him into bed”.
Jilly says with a smile: “Robert Redford didn’t like me.
“He thought I was trying to get off with him — and I wasn’t.”
Hopefully, her refreshingly open attitude will be apparent in the telly version of Rivals.
Jilly has not felt the need to interfere in the production so far, even though she is allowed to object to anything she is not keen on.
She adds: “I am allowed to say if I don’t like something.
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“But on the whole it has been very lovely and I am very excited about it because I think it is going to be wonderful.”
- Tackle! by Jilly Cooper is out now
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Grant Rollings
