'It would be sad not to have sex again before you die!' Helen Lederer on Losing It

"Arousal is important when you don't have it."

Helen Lederer is talking about her debut novel Losing It, but somehow we keep coming back to sex.

We meet for cocktails in the latest trendy London bar in the Ham Yard Hotel and share a giggle over the silliness and splendour of it all.

The comedienne's new book is a passionate riposte to the focus on young women and then the Bridget Jones generation in most of today's chick lit.

"As this middle-aged person I invented the word 'mid-lit,'" she says.

At 60 Lederer is certainly not ready yet to roll over and disappear.

Her book is a wry and witty rallying call for women of a certain age, like the heroine Milly, who are wondering where their lives have gone.

Women, I suggest, who are rather like the author herself.

"I really loved writing this book and they do say, "write what you know'" she replies with a glint in her eye.

She does not shy away from the sex in the book.

Happily married for fourteen years to her second husband, Chris Browne, a GP who, "blissfully has nothing do with this business," Lederer says she did "a bit of shagging" when she was younger but confesses to finding the whole interplay between men and women perplexing.

Much like the rest of us.

"As you get older you can get into the habit of not having sex until you accept it as normal," she says.

"I don't think it's true for men, but as women you should still want, you should believe that desire is good." 

Like most people she knows that the solution may seem simple but is rarely so in a busy modern wolrd.

"People tell you to arrange a date night - but then we are so busy it never happens."

She even took herself to a retreat recently to explore her sexuality.

"We danced and did breathing to get in touch with our bodies and lose our inhibitions.

"It can seem so ridiculous and it's hard to let go.

"I was thinking, 'You are a middle-aged woman what the f*** are you doing?'" she laughs.

But it worked.

"I tell you after a week of it I was hot!"

Lederer's main characetr in the book, Milly, wrestles with her weight and Lederer confesses to similar issues.

"I've always been round. I was a fat child."

Rounds of diets and diet pills as a younger woman left her "a bit crazy."

"I took slimming pills which they don't give out anymore because I think they kill people!

"They make you not want to eat, so you can just drink wine and I was so happy!"

Although she still admits to struggling with her extra pounds, like most people, Lederer says she has found some kind of peace with the situation.

"i've tried everything except a gastric band.

"But it's so much money and then what if you have a sandwich straight after?"

Besides it's not a lifestyle or obsession she wants to accept anymore.

" I don't want to go out with friends for dinner and spoil everything by not eating or being fussy.

"I hear that Cameron Diaz does yoga at two in the morning and eats her spinach and is as happy as Larry.

"Good for her but it's not for everyone."

More comfortable now in her own skin than she has ever been, Lederer hopes that the book will speak to other women and give them hope.

She also hopes that they will laugh, too.

"I want it to be funny, as well.

"This isn't a fad for me but I know it isn't Dickens.

"It is just about real life - funny and sad and difficult.

"It's like performing, it's a way of communicating for me.

"I want us all to take pleasure from what we have now, for what's possible but also to keep looking what might still be possible in the future."

Helen Lederer's book Losing It is out now (Pan, £7.99) is out now.