Clubland in uproar when Country Life dropped bridge

AFTER 119 years in print, Country Life might be forgiven for signing up to the mantra “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.

For attempts to bring the magazine into the 21st century by dropping its bridge column or adding men or dogs to its famous “Girls in Pearls” page ended in disaster, staff have revealed.

Jessica Fellowes, deputy editor from 2004 to 2008, said there had been a “deluge of complaints” after the magazine toyed with placing a gentleman on its frontispiece, beloved by readers for its selection of a young, attractive, wellheeled woman each issue. And when it removed the bridge column one week, a gentleman’s club threatened a sit-in protest in its office, she said. The colourful world of Country Life is revealed in a BBC documentary,

Land of Hope and Glory, which spent a year behind the scenes at the magazine.

Writing in the Radio Times, Miss Fellowes, the niece of Downton Abbey’s screenwriter, Lord Fellowes, said she had been brought in to modernise the magazine in the face of concerns about how it would survive in a digital age.

Instead, she found, it was and still is “not only surviving but thriving”.

“Its stated pillars – architecture and gardens – are, on the face of it, niche interests,” she said. “Yet, its status is iconic all over the world.

“Making changes to Country Life is hard as the readers rely on its content – we removed the bridge column one week and members of White’s, a gentleman’s club, threatened to stage a sitin protest in our office.”

Describing changes to “one of the more extraordinary elements”, the “Girls in Pearls”, she said: “We toyed with it by having a dog or a man instead, but each time we did, we would be deluged by complaints.”

‘Land of Hope and Glory: British Country Life’ is on BBC Two from Mar 4