My life with a very glossy posse: Magazine supremo NICHOLAS COLERIDGE recalls taking job at Tatler with a mission to make it more racy - and how Lady Diana Spencer helped to turn it into the toast of the town

On Saturday, in the first part of Nicholas Coleridge's deliciously indiscreet memoirs, the society magazine supremo revealed the secrets of his life rubbing shoulders with aristocrats, royalty and celebrities. 

Today, he tells how he landed a job at Tatler with a mission to make it more racy — and how Lady Diana Spencer helped to turn it into the toast of the town...

The week I left Cambridge University, I spotted in a newspaper that Tina Brown had just been appointed as the new editor of Tatler. I applied at once.

I was interviewed at the terrace house she shared with her boyfriend, Harry Evans, editor of The Sunday Times. We sat in her kitchen. Tina was 27: blonde, foxy, watchful.

Nicholas got his first break over 30 or so photographs taken at the 18th birthday party of the Duke of Rutland's daughter, Lady Theresa Manners, at Belvoir Castle

Nicholas got his first break over 30 or so photographs taken at the 18th birthday party of the Duke of Rutland's daughter, Lady Theresa Manners, at Belvoir Castle

Spread out on the table between us were 30 or so party photographs, taken at the recent 18th birthday party of the Duke of Rutland's daughter, Lady Theresa Manners, at Belvoir Castle.

Tina asked: 'Do you know who any of these chinless characters are?' 

I did. 'Actually, I was at that party.' 

'I need a headline,' she said. It was a test. 'Something snappy.' 

'Saturday Night Belvoir?' I was hired on the spot — as associate editor.

Note: the headline 'Saturday Night Belvoir' is a near-perfect example of early Eighties glossy magazine wit, being both a pun on a recent film title and deliciously excluding.

Only in-the-know readers who realise that Belvoir Castle is pronounced 'Beaver' and not 'Bellvoir' would get it. So at least half the paying audience would miss the joke, and the in-crowd feel smug. 

In 1979, Tatler was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Its offices were of unmatched decrepitude: you went up to the fourth floor in a jerking, pre-war lift, walked up a further flight, passed by the offices of a debt-collecting agency, and entered a tiny sloping catacomb.

Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, lived alone in a rococo-and-chintz service flat in the Grosvenor House hotel. When collecting her monthly column, Nicholas said: 'Her claw-like hand rested on my knee'

Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, lived alone in a rococo-and-chintz service flat in the Grosvenor House hotel. When collecting her monthly column, Nicholas said: 'Her claw-like hand rested on my knee'

Tina occupied a windowless office at the back, the other ten of us hunkered down at a mishmash of Edwardian school desks with antique Bakelite telephones and 40-year-old editions of Debrett's and Who's Who.

She quickly gave her us her vision for the new-look Tatler.

Out would go photographs of galloping majors at point-to-points and hunt balls, out would go the wedding portraits of pudding-faced Herefordshire debutantes and anything else elderly, dowdy or staid.

Instead, readers would be treated to sexy London It-girls, philandering men about town, disgraced dukes, libidinous novelists, upwardly mobile hostesses and knighted thespians.

'It's an upper-class comic,' declared Tina.

My job description soon accrued three distinct duties. The first was to write at least four articles a month, under multiple pseudonyms. 

Unable to pay many outside contributors, I'd write two under my own name, then several more as Marcus von Trout, Harry Haviland, Percy Peverel and so forth.

At Prince Andrew's 21st birthday ball at Windsor Castle, Nicholas was intrigued by the simultaneous 'chauffeurs' party' that the royals were putting on for guests' drivers in the cellar

At Prince Andrew's 21st birthday ball at Windsor Castle, Nicholas was intrigued by the simultaneous 'chauffeurs' party' that the royals were putting on for guests' drivers in the cellar

My second role was to sell the review copies of books for cash. Tatler was sent numerous expensive art volumes, and these we augmented by ringing round publishers and pretending we were planning a big feature on the best new illustrated books.

They'd courier these round. My job was to take them by taxi to a second-hand bookshop, and flog six large boxes of them.

The £300 of cash I would hand to Tina, who passed it straight to the novelist Julian Barnes, our restaurant critic, who spent it on reviewing Langan's Brasserie or The Savoy Grill.

My final task was to collect the monthly column of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, who lived all alone in a rococo-and-chintz service flat in the Grosvenor House hotel.

She was still notorious as the protagonist in the 1963 'headless man' scandal, when she'd been photographed through a keyhole performing a sexual favour on an unnamed gentleman with an obscured face, but visible d***, in the drawing room of Inveraray Castle.

Tatler was rehabilitating her reputation by commissioning a social column of unparalleled drivel, named 'Steppin' out with the Duchess of Argyll'.

Each visit, while I speed-read her latest effort, the Duchess sat disconcertingly close, leaning across to ensure I'd fully appreciated some witticism or name-drop, though the column was sadly short on both. Her claw-like hand rested on my knee.

'One evening we must drink cocktails together in the suite,' she murmured.

At editorial conferences, we competed to suggest stories to delight Tina, the more lascivious the better: British dukes with the biggest d***s... posh wives who had started life as escort girls... the most unctuous royal courtiers.

The magazine still sold shockingly few copies, but the advertising department spun it as a slam-dunk success, and so it was perceived.

Meanwhile, in the parallel world of illusion, Tatler parties became ever more frequent and glamorous. 

Minor royals, major tycoons, nightclub greeters, social astronauts, posh teenagers and serial seducers like Dai Llewellyn, Sir William Pigott-Brown and Rupert Deen defined the guest list.

Tina wrote a pseudonymous column, 'Rosie Boot's Guide to London Bachelors', and returned fired up with disparaging descriptions from lunchtime encounters with playboys. 

She had a theory that dull men invariably order cheese souffle, the preparation of which entailed an additional 25 minutes in their company.

Nicholas said: 'It was the arrival of Lady Diana Spencer on the scene which finally saved Tatler'

Nicholas said: 'It was the arrival of Lady Diana Spencer on the scene which finally saved Tatler'

It was the arrival of Lady Diana Spencer on the scene which finally saved Tatler. Her combination of London Sloane, Northamptonshire blue-blood and princess-designate played to all the magazine's core competencies at once.

A special Sunday Times-style Tatler Insight team was set up at a designated Diana desk, with every detail about Lady Di amassed and tabulated. 

The Coleherne Court mansion flat, where she lived with her three flatmates, was permanently staked out by Tatler staff.

As the whole world yearned for more and more Diana Spencer information, Tatler become the go-to source. Circulation soared. The magazine was suddenly the toast of the town.

It's rare to get two job offers in one evening, especially at 23, but that is what happened.

The gossip columnist of the [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, a 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 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.

 
Nicholas had a 'hopeless crush' on Caroline Blackwood's daughter Evgenia

Nicholas had a 'hopeless crush' on Caroline Blackwood's daughter Evgenia

A hopeless crush on a silent date 

In my 20s, I developed a hopeless crush on Evgenia, boho daughter of the novelist Lady Caroline Blackwood, who was 17 and had the most beautiful soulful eyes.

Tatler had described her as having 'a mouth like a bruised peach'. When you took her out to dinner, she barely spoke a word, just stared at you dolefully, obliging you to do all the talking — like a visit to the psychiatrist.

She must have found my constant chatter oppressive because she once slipped off to the restaurant loo in the middle of dinner and failed to reappear. It was 20 minutes before I began to wonder where she'd got to.

A search party was sent to look for her. Eventually, a waiter reported: 'The kitchen porter, he saw the lady climb out of window, she gone.' Demoralising at the time.

Evgenia wrote an adorable letter the next day, explaining she'd simply run out of conversation.

 

Why Carol Thatcher preferred to fly in 'toilet class'

During the late Eighties, Carol Thatcher lived in a terrace cottage off the Wandsworth Bridge Road in South London, decorated like student digs with makeshift bookshelves built from planks and bricks, and a Union Jack flag draped across a collapsing sofa.

The sole indication that her mother, Margaret Thatcher, was Prime Minister was a reinforced, bomb-proof letter box that was impossible to open. 

I thought Carol's decrepit cottage reflected well on the integrity of British public life; the daughter of most third-term heads of government would have been living in gilded luxury.

Carol made a living as a freelance journalist, and amused us with her stories of saving money.

Sent to interview President Bhutto of Pakistan by the Daily Express, her newspaper supplied her with a first-class aeroplane ticket, on account of her being the Prime Minister's daughter. 

'God, I cashed that in at once,' Carol said in her noisy, matter-of-fact voice. 

'I said at the airport, "Bung me down in toilet class and give me the difference in cash," which they did.

'When we landed in Islamabad, the President had sent a whole reception committee to greet me — red carpet, brass band, limo, ministers. But when they saw I wasn't in first, they went away again. I got a tuk-tuk to the palace.'

 

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. 
 

TOMORROW: The future chancellor who never had the money for his train fare

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