How Lady Theresa Manners gave me my first break
[London] Evening Standard asked me to dinner at his flat. The editor of the newspaper, Louis Kirby, was also a guest, as was the paper’s famously camp astrologer, Patric Walker, who wrote the horoscope. I hit it off with both.
Over supper, Louis Kirby said: ‘You should write a column for us, Nick. What I’m looking for is a bit of fun, surprising, man-about-town stuff, stunts to entertain the commuters. Bags of personality and bravado.’ He mentioned money and it sounded agreeably more than Tatler.
I was heading home after dinner when Patric Walker said: ‘Nicholas, this may sound crazy, but I’ve received a message from above. From the planets. We can’t speak here, but drive me to my hotel, sweetie, I’d like to buy you a nightcap . . .’ I drove him to Mayfair, to a chi-chi boutique hotel on Chesterfield Street.
‘Come sit in the snug,’ he said. ‘It’s cosy. We won’t be disturbed.’ He ordered whiskies.
Patric was the most celebrated and successful astrologer in the world, his daily horoscopes syndicated from Hong Kong to the States, earning him millions; he was regarded by devotees as uncannily perceptive. He was tall, mannered and confiding, with the suspicion of a comb-over about his hairline.
‘Listen, Nicholas,’ he said, edging closer. ‘I don’t mean to alarm you, but I’ve had a message from my celestial guides. It came during dinner. You are going to be my successor, my disciple and my heir.’
‘Goodness,’ I said. ‘I don’t really read horoscopes.’
‘ What is your star sign, Nicholas?’ ‘Er, Pisces.’ ‘Of course, I knew it. Your lack of knowledge doesn’t concern me, I can teach you. You will inherit my books, my astrological library. And eventually my business. You will come with me to Greece, to Lindos where I have a house, and I shall teach you everything . . .’ Probably Patric knew my decision already, and I joined the Evening Standard the following month.
The editorial floor was immense. The literary editor, Valerie Grove, took me on a brief tour, and attempted to introduce me to a semi-retired features executive named Marius Pope, who was slumped over his desk, head in his hands. ‘He’s asleep,’ Valerie said. ‘It’s normal — you’ll meet him later.’
When we returned from lunch, Marius hadn’t moved an inch. ‘Marius? Marius?’ said Valerie. ‘Marius?’ Now she was concerned. ‘Oh no.’ Marius had suffered a massive coronary five hours earlier. He was heaved away on a stretcher by several burly men from the post-room. I believe he recovered.
Three days to go before my first column, I still had no idea what to write. Periodically, a person from the paper would ring, asking: ‘ Any idea what your first piece is about? Picture desk is asking.’ It was terrifying.
At the eleventh hour, brainwave.
The next night was Prince Andrew’s 21st birthday ball at Windsor Castle. A few friends were invited to it, but what intrigued me was the simultaneous ‘chauffeurs’ party’ that the royals were putting on for guests’ drivers, taking place in the cellars beneath the castle.
A friend agreed to sneak me in as their chauffeur, and I borrowed a uniform and peaked cap. No one batted an eyelid as I deposited three pretty girls in puffball dresses at the castle door.
The cellar was thronged with chauffeurs, holding their caps in one hand, soft drinks in the other. Some of the caps had plumes. Several drivers wore knickerbockers.
A lavish buffet featuring pork pies, sausage rolls, coleslaw and potato salad was on offer. Distantly, you could hear the discotheque from the ball — Making Your Mind Up by Bucks Fizz.
Nonchalantly, I struck up conversations with my fellow drivers. This one drove the Duke of Here, that one drove the Earl of There. Others drove foreign heads of state, ambassadors, tycoons, Grade II royals and celebrities.
‘I don’t think much of the spread, do you?’ said one. ‘I’ll bet they’re doing better for themselves upstairs — it’ll be champagne and lobster all the way up there.’
It’s amazing what insights you
TOMORROW: THE FUTURE CHANCELLOR WHO NEVER HAD THE MONEY FOR HIS TRAIN FARE
can garner from a cellar full of chauffeurs as they gossip and carp about their bosses. As I left the ball at 4.30am, I remember thinking: well, that’s week one in the can. What on earth is next week’s column?
For the next four years, I somehow managed to fill the space, often by the skin of my teeth.
Louis Kirby loved stunt journalism, so I arrived at casinos dressed as an Arab sheikh, to test the reaction at the roulette table, or worked as a waiter in San Lorenzo to discover which celebrities left the best or worst tips (Dustin Hoffman was a generous tipper, I do remember that).
Another column involved turning up at poetry clubs in earl’s Court and Fitzrovia, clutching my intentionally bad verse, and seeing what the other 30 attendees thought of it (they loved it — ‘so sensitive’).
An abuse scandal broke out at a boarding school in Suffolk, run by a sadistic-sounding headmaster with a fat, sweaty face. Parents were urgently withdrawing their children from the place and every newspaper was desperate for an interview. Unsurprisingly, the head wasn’t talking. I rang the Admissions Office, pretending I wanted to put my nephews down for the school, and please could we look round. The school was excited at the prospect of new pupils, since their numbers were in free-fall.
I took a friend, Lily, disguised as my wife, with a borrowed wedding ring. We arrived at the school gates and were waved in, past an encampment of rival journalists. Our tour culminated in an audience with the head in his study, a bull of a man in a pinstripe suit. His lardy, jowly face encased lips with an unpleasant curl to them. The room was alleged to be the setting for monstrous beatings and mistreatment.
I explained that my elder brother and sister- in- law had died in a recent car accident, leaving my wife and I with unwelcome responsibility for my nephews. It was vital they went to boarding school without delay.
I added: ‘I did notice some nonsense in the newspapers, which I’m sure is very much exaggerated, in the irresponsible way these journalists behave. It occurred to me you might have vacancies for two chaps to start next week.’
The headmaster was only too pleased to offer places, sight unseen. He also had plenty to say about discipline, self-reliance and the mollycoddling of children. I encouraged him, but was terrified that at any moment our cover would be blown. My article, titled ‘The day I put my boys down for St Whacko’s’ was a great scoop. The head resigned soon afterwards.
As fate would have it, I was mooching about in an antiques shop in Pimlico a month or two later when, to my horror, the headmaster of St Whacko’s entered the shop. We stared at each other. His eyes bulged with fury.
‘You!’ he bellowed. ‘You!’ He began chasing me round the Georgian chairs and marquetry tables. He was like Spode from Jeeves and Wooster.
Fortunately, the owner appeared out of his back office, and I sped swiftly away. One day, I got a call from Harpers & Queen: the editor had stormed off the magazine in a huff and the new one was wondering whether I’d like to be one of his deputies.
I was 28. I said yes. And so the newspaper years ended, and I returned to my first and truest love: magazines.
The Glossy Years by Nicholas Coleridge will be published on September 26 by Penguin, £25. ©Nicholas Coleridge 2019. To buy a copy for £20 (20 per cent discount) go to mailbookshop.co.uk or call 01603 648155, p&p is free. Offer valid until 28/09/2019. Nicholas Coleridge will be appearing at the henley Literary Festival on Sunday, October 6, at 2pm, interviewed by You magazine editor Jo elvin. To book tickets, go to henleyliteraryfestival. co.uk or call 01491 575 948.