The moment I stepped out of the Covent Garden sunshine and into the regal offices of the Lady magazine, it was like stepping into a 19th-century Tardis, and I was already in love. ‘I’m going for the editorship hell for leather,’ I wrote in my diary (published in 2010). ‘I’ve even been out and bought and read a copy of the magazine for the very first time!’
It was the funeral parlour ambience. The genteel tones of the telephonist, Ros, taking calls from deaf dowager duchesses placing adverts for a couple to prepare light luncheons and do some gentle housework in return for accommodation in the gatehouse.
It was the fact that the Lady was the inspiration for P.G. Wodehouse’s Milady’s Boudoir, the organ for which Bertie Wooster, of course, does his only recorded instance of paid work: a feature on ‘What the Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing’.
It was the fact that Lewis Carroll did the puzzle; the founder was Thomas Gibson Bowles, the grandfather of the Mitford sisters and the great grandfather of Ben Budworth, the man who was guiding me upstairs for my interview for the plum role as only the ninth editor of the magazine since 1885.
It was the fact that Nancy Mitford contributed and that her father, David Freeman-Mitford, was general manager for a spell, but was so bored he spent the time ratting with his pet mongoose in the basement.
It was all of the above – but it was really the fact that I’d been sacked by the Sunday Times, I had three children in private school, it was a delicious challenge, and also Ben made me laugh.
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