COVID changed many lives, not least for Ros Huxley, who quit her full time work to write, after many years in the creative industries and latterly as a charity fund-raiser. After writing several short stories, she has now published her first novel, Kendal Acts Up, the story of an unusual woman who pretends to be nearly 20 years OLDER than she really is.

It draws on various strands of Ros’s life, including her father’s time in a care home and decades living in Bridport, where her husband Chris was the hugely respected director of the arts centre for many years. Ros took an MA in creative writing at Exeter University while still working. She has written a number of short stories, as well as being a judge for the Bridport Prize, and was encouraged to write the novel by members of her writing group.

Kendal Acts Up has an unusual premise, although the retirement home setting is perhaps not unfamiliar, given the success of the play and film Quartet and Richard Osman’s cosy crime novels. The book is based on the adventures of Kendal Tudge, a single Londoner in her 40s who inherits her Uncle Clem’s flat in a home on the Jurassic Coast, in a place that bears an uncanny resemblance to Bridport and West Bay. Kendal decides to pretend she is older than her actual 44 to meet the minimum 60 years age limit at the home.

Ros found part of the inspiration for her book in her visits to her father when he was in a care home. At the end of long working days, she would relax in her father’s room looking out at the view, and imagining she could live there – everything done for you, nothing to clean, fix or worry about. Her father pointed out that she wasn’t old enough, but the idea set her thinking. What would happen if someone could pretend to be older than they are to be able to live in a retirement home. So this is what her heroine does

The story, which explores some of the hidden prejudices and stereotypes faced by those labelled as “elderly”,
has a wide cast of characters, including Gary the handsome warden and the residents of Jurassic Court. Central to the action is Kendal, a witty and intelligent woman, with experience of the corporate and business world, who finds herself living in a new and very different community. But Kendal’s life is also complicated and chaotic – one reader has described her as a “Jurassic Coast Bridget Jones”.

It’s a fascinating story, inviting the reader to look at the lives of older people in an intelligent and different way.

Kendal Acts Up is published by WriteSideLeft, a small 21st century press which champions new writing and design, in print, ebooks & audiobooks.