Caroline’s back in town

The Sloane is dead — but long live the Sloane. Her mother, Caroline, and father, Henry — the original Hooray — may be in their natural retirement homes in the Shires or Scotland along with the family dog snug by the Aga in the cosy kitchen, but she, we now know, using her native skills, has burst out of her famous 1980s stereotype to adapt to the new order. It’s an amusing conceit, with enough truth for 20-year-olds to have a wry laugh at themselves.

Twenty-five years ago, a series of articles written by that grandee of social observation Peter York, in the then vital directory of upper-middle-class social mores Harpers & Queen, identified the various not-so-exotic creatures whose centre of the Known World was Sloane Square. The Sloane Ranger and her appendages — family, pets, educational qualifications, clothes, holiday preferences and rules for life — were the topic of numerous handbooks and diaries housed, naturally, on the loo bookshelf of every young thing who knew they were — or aspired to be — just like Caroline, Henry and their friends.