BL-24 - Flipbook - Page 29
TA B L E TA L K
It is a very witty and observant book,
but the fact that even otherwise bookfree households had a copy re昀氀ected
how dormant snobbery had been
reawakened by Princess Di. Everyone
was now interested in historic houses
and social interconnectedness, napkins
and dovecotes (pronounced “ducuts”).
Tatler, in 1980 an almost defunct
magazine with a small circulation,
featuring black-and-white photos of
sporting events attended by grandees
with weather-ruined complexions, was
suddenly being edited by Tina Brown.
She “re-birthed” the upper classes and
began to celebrate them, although in
a mocking, not reverential way. “The
magazine that bites the hand that feeds
it,” said the strapline.
We revelled in quaint aspects of the
aristocracy. Who, except the very well
connected, was aware that the obscure
Scrope (pronounced “Scroop”) family
was one of England’s grandest? “It
bears the most famous coat of arms
in English heraldry and descends in
the direct male line from medieval
lords who feature in the plays of
Shakespeare” wrote the genealogist
Hugh Massingberd.
We pro昀椀led the then obscure Devon
landowner Francis Fulford (later the
subject of a reality TV series, The
F***ing Fulfords).
Snobbery peaked around the mid1990s. I was then working on Harpers
& Queen, another class-obsessed
publication. It had long been home
to Jennifer’s Diary, written by Betty
Kenward, a social column whose
annual output was 140,000 words,
80,000 of which were names, and in
which every private party-giver longed
to appear.
Mrs Kenward – along with Peter
Townend of Tatler, Hugh Massingberd
(obituaries editor of the Daily
Telegraph), Charles Kidd of Debrett’s,
the ladies involved in the Court
“I compiled an openly
snobbish and sexist line up of
rich, eligible and heterosexual
singleton males over the age
of 70, which I called Dowager
Dateline.”
Other writers were also drawn to
Vogue House, Hanover Square, from
where Condé Nast produced Tatler,
昀椀nancing all our lunches, drinks
and dinners as long as we were
“researching” an article. Before this,
there had been no such concept as
“social currency”.
Francis Fulford and his family starred on Channel 4’s The F***ing Fulfords
Mark Boxer took over from Brown
as editor, and mid-1980s Tatler was
the place to work. Stephen Fry and
Edward St Aubyn had their 昀椀rst
pieces published there; Craig Brown,
Jonathan Meades, Michael Roberts,
Isabella Blow, Alexandra Shulman,
Dafydd Jones and Michael Roberts
were on the staff with me; and there
was Peter Townend, who ran the deb
(debutante) season.
Only Massingberd knew that “in the
English landed aristocracy, between
ten and twenty families have the
distinction of being descended in the
male line from a medieval ancestor
who took his surname from lands
which they held and still hold.
Therefore not “Lord Alderney” but
“Alderney of Alderney:, “Wolselely of
Wolseley” and “Fulford of Fulford”.
I found it enchanting that Francis
Fulford’s postal address was “The
Fulford of Fulford, Fulford, Fulford.”
And, while we mocked the upper
classes as well as glamorising them,
the mockery was affectionate (and
sometimes lustful, if Mark Shand or
Lucian Freud were our subjects.)
I compiled an openly snobbish and
sexist line up of rich, eligible and
heterosexual singleton males over the
age of 70, which I called Dowager
Dateline.
29
BOISDALELIFE.COM
ISSUE 24
Circulars of the Telegraph and The
Times, and the people at the College
of Arms – was one of a dying breed:
these were the only people who could
write titles correctly. Today, Lord
Sugar calls himself Lord Alan Sugar,
and even Earl Spencer mispronounces
the name of Althorp, his own house.
One day, the staff of Harpers was
called to a marketing meeting to be
told that class was “over”, that it was a
dead concept. Nobody was interested
in seeing names of people who had
done nothing in their own right but
were just children of titled people.
From now on, we would write about
the House Beautiful and the Green
Lifestyle.
