Q. I was rather hurt yesterday when I delivered my
80-year-old mother to the Carlton Club at 3 p.m. to meet her friends and have tea and the porter would not allow me in. ‘Madam, are you wearing jeans!’ Too true — Armani jeans, Jermyn Street shirt, Burberry mac, flat anklelength leather boots and small smart black leather shoulder bag. So out in the street — a five-hour round trip and not even a cup of tea. Thanks, Carlton Club. Advice please.
J.M.A., address withheld A. Since you have a mother of 80 you must be at least 34 yourself. It is surprising that you could have arrived at that age without being aware that one of the points of Clubland is that it offers the timeless reassurance of a world where boundaries remain boundaries — unlike almost every other area of modern life. If you were in truly desperate need of admission — for biological reasons, for example — you could always have taken a tip from heiress Jayne Harries, who got around this problem when refused entry to the Royal Enclosure in 1968 because she was wearing a white trouser suit. Miss Harries, the daughter of a self-made millionaire, the Welsh businessman William Harries, simply returned to her father’s Rolls-Royce and removed the trousers, returning in just the top — which passed muster as a microdress with the hem just below her ‘pants’. At least she was not wearing trousers, so no objections were raised and she gained admission.
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