A RENOIR AND A PICASSO... IN THE LOO

I COULD never have predicted when I was doing my history of art degree that I would one day be appointed chairman of the V&A, a post I’ve held since 2015. Last year, I accompanied Mary and Jeffrey Archer around the V&A Opera exhibition with a curator, and Jeffrey was in prime form. Spotting a small canvas by Renoir on display showing the interior of an opera box, he declared: ‘I don’t know why you didn’t ask to borrow my Renoir of an opera scene. Nobody asked me.’ Then, turning to me, he said, ‘You probably know this already, young man, but one should always hang one’s best pictures on the walls of the lavatory. That’s what I do. My Renoir and a Picasso, both in the loo. ‘When friends visit us, I ask, “Did you like the Renoir and the Picasso in the loo?” and, do you know, half the time they haven’t even noticed them. They’ve been right there in front of them, but they never noticed them.’ odd in this arrangement. It was interpreted as ‘putting people at their ease’.

As for my course, well, I’m afraid it was only periodically that I remembered I was there to study Theology. I soon stopped attending lectures altogether.

The only other religiously minded student at Trinity was Justin Welby, an always-smiling, conspicuously spiritual figure, now the Archbishop of Canterbury, who could sometimes be glimpsed holding a coffee and walnut cake from Fitzbillies teashop, en route to a God Squad prayer meeting.

How I passed my first- year exams, I have no idea. By then, however, I had switched to History of Art.

This was a better fit. But by the time I graduated, I was craving to get on with life on a glossy magazine, and Cambridge already felt like stale news.

n 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.