When I was a green young journalist making my way on a London society column, I remember hanging around the doors of the Groucho Club in Soho trying to talk my way in. Someone tapped my shoulder. It was the artist Peter Blake. He and his wife Chrissy, regulars at my father’s café, had known me since I was a child. He gestured to the doorman to let me through and sat me at his table.
And so came an early lesson in London society. It didn’t matter where I worked. It was who I happened to know. I’m not sure the British actor Nigel Havers relied on such luck when getting membership of the Garrick Club. His father Sir Michael Havers, former attorney-general, was a key member.
Two very different clubs, with different memberships, both riding high on a reputation of exclusivity — the Garrick a little too exclusive for some, including me, although I have been taken to lunch, tea, drinks and dinner there.