And Another Thing | 6 September 2008

When I first experienced literary life in London it was 1955 and poor Anthony Eden was prime minister. His delightful wife Clarissa was to be seen at literary parties and, amazingly enough, still is. The great panjandrums were Cyril Connolly and Raymond Mortimer on the Sunday Times, Philip Toynbee and Harold Nicolson on the Observer, and V.S. Pritchett and John Raymond on the New Statesman. John was my friend, and he opened all the doors to me, doors which were firmly shut in many eager faces. Every morning, in the Commercial on the King’s Road, or the French Pub in Dean Street, he and Maurice Richardson would pool their knowledge of book-launch parties that evening, and decide which to go to. I would tag along. These events were worth attending, too. Hosts would still serve hard liquor. Jock Murray, at his gatherings in the splendid first-floor drawing room in Albemarle Street, where Byron’s memoirs had been burnt in the grate still to be seen, used to pride himself on mixing the best dry martinis in London.