Readers have shared their personal memories of Jilly Cooper following the author's death, with one revealing she named her daughter after a character from Cooper's 1970s novels. Caroline Cole of Huddersfield said she had loved Cooper's Sunday Times column and her 'permissive novels', so when her first daughter was born in 1977, she knew she wanted to call her Harriet.
Cole added that a friend had mistakenly believed for nearly 50 years that Harriet was named after a character in Jane Austen's Emma. 'I was reluctant to shatter his fond illusions, but as my personal tribute to Jilly Cooper have decided I will now do so,' she wrote.
Bob Kentridge, a professor of psychology at Durham University, said he had never read a Cooper novel but was saddened by her death. He recalled her 1982 programme Shakespeare in Perspective | The Merry Wives of Windsor, praising her 'insight, humanity and wry observations of class'.
Jean Holmes of Clitheroe, Lancashire, said she received three copies of Cooper's book How to Stay Married as a newlywed in the 1960s. 'The advice must have been good, though, as we celebrated our 57th anniversary in July,' she wrote.
