It’s difficult to ignore how little Julie Burchill allows you to feel sorry for her because of the unique way she writes about her own body these days. Which is half regretful and half daring. She has been in the hospital for four months. She has lost the majority of her hair due to a condition known as Telogen Effluvium, which, when spoken slowly, sounds almost gentle, much like a serious diagnosis. She might never be able to walk again.
The voice on the page is unmistakably the same one that once mocked Camille Paglia and intimidated editors twice her age. It is slower and older now. But it still gives the reader a sidelong glance with that recognizable blend of mischief and grit. These are the bare facts around the end of 2024, Burchill, who turned 66 this year, had emergency spinal surgery.
Five weeks in a Brighton hospital. Then a lengthy section at a rehabilitation facility in West Sussex. Hidden away on what the staff insisted on referring to as the lower ground floor. Which she simply called the basement due to her writer’s mistrust of euphemisms. The elevators malfunctioned the windows remained closed.
| Key Information | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Julie Burchill |
| Date of Birth | 3 July 1959 |
| Age | 66 |
| Nationality | British (English) |
| Birthplace | Bristol, England |
| Residence | Hove, Brighton |
| Profession | Writer, Journalist, Novelist |
| Career Start | New Musical Express, age 17 |
| Notable Publications | The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator |
| Notable Novel | Sugar Rush (2004) — adapted for television |
| Health Condition | Spinal injury following emergency surgery; partial paralysis |
| Hospital Stay | Approximately four months (late 2024 – 2025) |
| Current Status | Discharged, living at home, uses wheelchair |
| Substack | julieburchill.substack.com |
She claims that the heating acted as if it were pouting. The women on the ward. The majority of whom were recovering from strokes and some of whom. Like her. Were recovering from spinal injuries. Spent the weekends sitting up in their beds and sobbing quietly into the institutional sheets because physiotherapy stopped on Friday afternoons and didn’t resume until Monday.
She didn’t keep quiet about it the prose makes that much clear. She recounts a scene in which one of the male nurses, seemingly unable to resist the allure of his own guitar, began playing *Don’t Look Back in Anger* late one evening. Burchill, who has been paid to say the unthinkable for forty-odd years, couldn’t help herself.
Across the ward, she yelled emphasized that the patients were a captive audience. Although it is a minor detail almost a footnote it provides insight into how she overcame it. Her contrariness hasn’t diminished, but the hedonism that characterized her early years has.
The body frequently does multiple things at once when it is in shock, so it’s possible that the hair loss occurred first or concurrently with everything else. Although telogen effluvium is common in patients who have undergone significant trauma or surgery. The cosmetic disgrace of it on top of the structural one appears to have hurt her in a way that she half jokes about and half doesn’t. She titled one piece *Halfling: A Farewell to Legs*. The pun is working hard. The resignation is the same.
When you read her dispatches, especially the lengthy one she wrote after returning home, you’ll notice how indifferent she is to the lost version of herself. She gives an almost external description of that woman, similar to how you would characterize a roommate who keeps odd hours. At five in the morning, the Burchill of a year ago leaped out of bed had a cup of black coffee.
wrote as urgently as she had at the *NME* when she was seventeen offered to help had a meal with pals. Went out to dinner with her husband. Whom she has been married to for thirty years but lives apart from because. As she states quite frankly. Her desire for solitude has outlasted all of her previous desires.
While the new Burchill was still barely conscious yesterday morning, she writes, that woman was already banging on the door on her way out Today, she’s back. The ghost refuses to go. Burchill doesn’t appear to want her to, though.
The little victories she documents have an almost defiant quality. An Art Deco apartment in Hove that is purposefully minimalistic. Her husband’s apartment next door is what she refers to as cluttered and what he would call cozy. Which sums up their marriage in eight words.
Before being released, she had been concerned that the space would have been converted into an invalid’s quarters, complete with grab rails, beige plastic, and the visual language of decline. Instead, it had been rearranged by Daniel, who was probably someone in her social circle. Two beds up against the same wall. There is space for wheels. The bathroom and kitchen doors were taken out. On a Wednesday at lunchtime, she arrived home as the sun was rising. Tentatively, she wheeled herself to the balcony and reached up, finding the catch within reach. She let the window open. air from the sea.
You could feel that something had settled at that point. Now, when she misjudges a turn, the wheelchair leaves tiny flakes of paint on the doorways. It doesn’t seem to bother her.
Evidence of her presence, she writes that she survived. You read this sentence twice because you can picture her writing it thirty years ago about something completely different. Like a night at a club. A romantic relationship. Or a column that led to her being sued. The same voice a different battlefield. It’s genuinely unclear if she will write as quickly and loudly as she used to. The Substack keeps going the columns disperse.
She responds to some readers in her comments section who seem shaken by what she’s been through with a brisk warmth that doesn’t quite hide the fact that she’s still figuring things out. She seems to be publicly negotiating the effects of disability on a writer whose entire identity was based on motion, energy, and offense. She might discover another register. As you watch this play out, you’ll notice that she hasn’t stopped talking just moved the furniture around.
i) https://spectator.com/article/im-finally-out-of-hospital/
ii) https://julieburchill.substack.com/p/halfling-a-farewell-to-legs
iii) https://www.pressreader.com/uk/the-scottish-mail-on-sunday/20250126/282059102676007?srsltid=AfmBOor-VDvdxKHiJce_zrjlwkL6PhocM4BcMLtPbOFnX9g0z3MATvXp
iv) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julie_Burchill
v) https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5451573-the-redoubtable-julie-burchill-on-disability