There is plenty about modern life to cause celebration and aggravation in equal measure...but it is never safe to make an assumption about how the different generations feel about anything, from vegans to scented candles.
This week, old hand Christopher Howse and young gun Guy Kelly evaluate exclusive environments
I was delighted to be taken to lunch once at the Special Forces Club, founded for members of the wartime Special Operations Executive. The SAS and SIS could join too. The people I saw there were brave and impressive, but above all, by training, secret. That was a rich paradox of the club’s existence: it seemed generous of them to trust guests.
But now the chief of MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, has resigned from the Garrick Club, which does not admit women as members. When MI6 didn’t officially exist, this might have been of interest. Today, though, who’s its head is public knowledge, while the names of Garrick members are being published as though their identities were secret. They’re not. There’s even a horrible tie of salmon and cucumber stripes that they wear openly in the street.
You’d think the SIS would secretly and intelligently defend the freedom of Britons to join clubs. Clubs are among the best things about this country, from the Dennis the Menace Fan Club to the Royal Pigeon Racing Association (founded 1896).
For me, it was the Colony Room Club in Soho that I loved, 40 years ago. I didn’t resign; it closed down. I don’t think the Colony, a drinking club when pubs had to shut every afternoon, was terribly good for me. But I’m glad it existed in its extreme bohemianism.
It was reported that the head of MI6’s resignation from the Garrick came ‘after criticism from colleagues’. I’d like to have seen one or two of those colleagues spend an evening with the freakish circus of the Colony under its monstrous ringmaster Ian Board.
There was nothing micro about his aggression. It raged like the storm in King Lear, provoked by the smallest thing. His aversion to lemon in a G&T developed into a hate crime against all fruit. ‘Dirty, stinking, rotten fruit bobbing around,’ he’d rage, in a voice like a cheese grater. ‘It’s f—king disgusting. Get rid of the stuff, I won’t have it in the house. Don’t ask me for fruit, cos you ain’t getting any.’
He’s dead of course, but if you sought diversity he’d have been a good place to start.
These are dangerous, dangerous times for the fabric of British society. Under siege from all sides, we must all pray that private members’ clubs – especially all-male private members’ clubs – can stand firm against lurid attacks on their character. Because we need them, far more than they need us.
Our friends at The Guardian, which habitually rounds on these institutions with all good intentions, clearly haven’t thought things through. ‘It’s just outrageous these things even exist!’ tends to be their gist. And yes, in some ways it’s not an ideal state of affairs. But consider what private members’ clubs really are: just places where the sorts of people who think private members’ clubs are a fine thing can go, fraternise with one another, and not bother the rest of us. They are brilliant.
Even to draw attention to any negative qualities is entirely self-defeating. Instead it is vital we maintain an air of wide-eyed envy, for our own sakes. In fact, think about it this way: ‘We, the kinds of people you’d usually rather lick a hedgehog than accidentally spend the evening with, are all going into this building to socialise without you. You couldn’t afford to join us if you tried. The door is guarded by security. You won’t even be able to see us through the windows. Now, how do you like that?’ is the message given off by some clubs.
And the rest of us, doing our best imitation of the downtrodden and excluded, just have to feign disgust, shake our fists and say, ‘Agh noooooo! Damn you! Such a shame! I guess we will never know… Oh, God, whatever will we… Ah well, see ya.’ Then we can go to the pub, safer in the knowledge that Oliver Dowden, or 24-year-old eSports millionaires, or the cocaine-crusted offspring of minor Britpop figures, are marginally less likely to be there.
Private members’ clubs do us all a service. Their denizens consider them sanctuaries; in reality, that’s what they make everywhere else for the rest of us. This is why, at all costs, we must come together now and fight to preserve every last one. The alternative is just too horrific.
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