It’s that time of year again. The Cheltenham festival. And I’m not talking about books. Once again I am a guest at the legendary racing tipster Colonel Pinstripe’s week-long country house party, and during the day at his racecourse hospitality chalet, where we might have an occasional small sherry or two. It is my eighth consecutive festival. Packing a suitcase for Cheltenham has become a landmark event of the calendar year, signifying primrose time, the retreat of winter, and falling off the Lenten wagon.
My suitcase was open on the bed and I was layering in my outfits. Lounge suit and gaudy tie for the evenings; tweed suit, country check shirt and sober tie for the racecourse; black tie for the journey home. Of course the tweed suit is purely fancy dress in my case, as it is, I’d guess, for the majority of tweed-suit wearers at Cheltenham. Among the crowds at Cheltenham you can generally spot those rare, mauve-faced individuals who wear tweed for practical, outdoor reasons.
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