Writing about the indignities of old age: the daunting stairway to the restaurant restroom, the benefits of a wheelchair in airports and its disadvantages at cocktail parties, giving the user what he described as a child's-eye view of the party and a crotch-level view of the guests. Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.

"
At seventeen he went up to Brasenose College Oxford where he read law though he was actually based at Christ Church because the Brasenose buildings had been requisitioned for the war effort. However Graham Lord's unofficial biography John Mortimer: The Devil's Advocate revealed in 2005 that none of Mortimer's submitted scripts had in fact been used and that the screenplay was actually written by the series producer and director. For the first and in fact the only time in my life I was thanks to Laurie Lee earning my living entirely as a writer.

Sir John Clifford Mortimer CBE QC (21 April 1923 – 16 January 2009) was a British barrister dramatist screenwriter and author.