Tatler UK - 07.2019

tatler.com Tatler July 2019 35

BYS TA NDE R

SOCIETY

Social climbing has

evolved. There’s room

at the top, but the way to

arrive now is by stealth

By DAVID JENKINS

in and

out

club

H

ow do you get ahead

in Society? How do

you clamber from

the mundane ranks

to the glittering peaks? How do you

find yourself saluting the sun on

a yoga mat with the Duchess of

Sussex? Or penetrate the domesticity

of Anmer Hall now that the young

royals have given up parties and

nightclubs? Why are the rich and

socially voracious trying desperately

to think of subtle ways into the

most exclusive enclosures in the land?

There are the obvious stratagems:

the millions of pounds given to

Oxbridge colleges, museums and

good works; the stout-hearted hours

eating rubber chicken and bidding

wildly on the charity circuit. Or

you could, like Iwan Wirth of the

world-dominating Hauser & Wirth

galleries, take a long lease on a grand

old house near the Royal Family’s

Deeside stamping ground, reanimate

the local hotel in Braemar, get the

Prince of Wales to reopen it – and

then cap that by persuading the

Queen herself to visit your firm’s

Somerset outpost at Bruton.

Or you could follow the example

of media tycoon Arianna Huffington,

aka ‘the Edmund Hillary of social

climbing’; born Arianna Stassinopoulos,

she’s also been called ‘the most upwardly

mobile Greek since Icarus’, and it’s

true – she has risen stratospherically

through British and American Society,

seeking out the rich, the famous,

the movers and the shakers.

But others are not so direct. They

go in for stealth social climbing.

They sit brooding in their Chelsea

mansions, conscious that their décor

is admired, their dinner parties

seemingly enjoyed, but feeling that

they’re not truly accepted, not right

in with the in-crowd. And in London

that’s a condition often suffered by

the non-dom crowd.

Joining an exclusive book club is

a shrewd tactic; likewise yoga classes.

And now baby showers are raining

down. Meantime, the truly yearning

are haunting the unlikely purlieus

And taking a cottage on an estate is

another surefire route into the big

house – observe the gilded throng

who have rented on Jemima Khan’s

Oxfordshire estate over the years.

The same goes for architectural

historians and their art-historical

colleagues, who can be very good

value – take Nicholas Penny, former

Director of the National Gallery,

who as a young curator in 1991

spotted a Raphael that had hung for

years, unnoticed, at Alnwick Castle,

home to the Dukes of Northumber-

land. Thirteen years later, it was sold

for £34.8 million. That’s the sort of

chap you want staying for the week-

end. So, anyone who’s currently

reading history of art at Cambridge

or the Courtauld should broadcast

their speciality loud and clear –

they’ll make a far more acceptable

boyfriend or girlfriend for an Earl’s

offspring than someone who stud-

ied geography, like Theresa May.

Of course, becoming a stellar

gardener or historian takes time,

and you may be keen to get through

the castle gates right now. In which

case, why not become a tutor? Teach

young Lady Eleanor her Latin with

panache and you’ll find yourself in

the ducal drawing room, playing

sonatas on the piano, in a flash.

Philip Womack did that, and ended

up marrying a von Preussen. In fact,

almost any skill can be used to prise

open the door of opportunity. Jon

Peters did Barbra Streisand’s hair,

had a relationship with her and

ended up running a film studio. (Of

the current tonsorial crop, Josh

Wood is rarely off an oligarch’s yacht

and is a very entertaining dinner

party guest.) The very rich – and not

wholly well – also like to have their

doctors constantly on side, ready to

do their duty. Sometimes more:

Harold Wilson’s doctor offered to

kill Lady Falkender, Wilson’s nemesis.

And there’s always room at the

inn – or palace – for anyone keen to

be a lady-in-waiting. Not in the

Royal Household sense, but in the

sense of the plainer, poorer and ever-

willing best friend to the grand but

lonely young heiress... Someone’s

got to do it. Anyway, good luck

climbing the greasy pole. (

He famously went along with a

writer to do a piece for The Sunday

Times Magazine. On arrival, the

writer was welcomed warmly into

the subjects’ house for lunch, while

the host said, ‘The photographer

Johnny can have a bite in the pub.’

Mortifyingly too late, Snowdon was

recognised and, when they begged him

to join them, he gravely reiterated,

‘The photographer Johnny can have

a bite in the pub.’ That’s telling them.

Less ermine-clad are Julian and

Isabel Bannerman, the raffish gardeners

who have rustled up flower beds for

the Prince of Wales – Julian refers to

him as ‘Three Feathers’, in a winning

Gardener Julian Bannerman refers to the

Prince of Wales as ‘Three Feathers’ in a

winning display of nickname-dropping

of Kilburn Lane, now that word’s

got out that the street’s bare-bones

pasta restaurant, Ida, has become a

favourite of Harry and Meghan.

But the surest route to the very

top is, perhaps, the artisanal path

• what Tatler used to call Nobs With
  Yob Jobs. The trailblazer for this was
  Tony Armstrong-Jones, the mildly
  toffish Society photographer who
  wooed and wed Princess Margaret and
  became the Earl of Snowdon. He
  knew how to deal with his elevation.

display of nickname- dropping. The

gardening gambit is an excellent

one: the bisexual Alvilde Lees-Milne

and her equally bisexual husband

James ended up advising Sir Mick

Jagger on the grounds of his French

château and living on the Duke of

Beaufort’s estate – owners just adore

talking parterres at their castle’s

groaning table. Being a rock’n’roll

star, like Sir Mick, gets you into all the

best houses – although being Mick

PHOTOGRAPH: DOUGIE WALLACE Jagger is perhaps a singular gift.

07-19BYST-SocialClimbing.indd 35 08/05/2019 14:51