Not writing screenplays until my 40s, I thought I was a late bloomer. Then my 88-year-old mum published her first novel.

They’re not an obvious pairing, but bear with me: what do my 88-year-old mum from Leeds and 53-year-old Mexican actor Carlos Diehz, star of hit movie Conclave, have in common?

Apart from both having great taste in necklaces, the answer is: they’re both late bloomers.

Carlos Diehz – who plays the crucial role of Cardinal Benítez in the BAFTA-winning, Oscar-nominated film – was an architect for 30 years (still is, in fact), and didn’t start taking acting lessons until the Covid pandemic hit. Conclave is his very first feature film. 

My mum, Annette Mann, was a primary school teacher her whole working life – then in her retirement wrote a novel: an imagined sequel to Jane Austen’s Persuasion. This year, 250 years since Austen’s birth – and 88 years since Mum’s – we finally put Pride and Persuasion out in the world:

My mum isn’t the only person I know of smashing it out of the park at this point in her life, either.

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