Brigid Keenan

What happened to Jonathan Aitken’s young meteors?

The story of those who defined a decade

  • From Spectator Life

I am not bragging when I say that 56 years ago I was a young meteor. No: it is official. In 1967, Jonathan Aitken, then a young journalist on the Evening Standard (his uncle, Lord Beaverbrook, owned it at the time) wrote a book about the upcoming young movers and shakers in London – the stars of the Sixties (to mix celestial bodies). The Young Meteors it was called, and I was one of them. 

At that time, I was 27 years old and the fashion editor of the Sunday Times and Aitken put me in as one of the three powerful influencers in that world. (The others were Marit Allen of Vogue and Georgina Howell of the Observer – both dead now, sadly.)   

Aitken lauds the women journalists of the Sixties but is puzzled by the lack of female editor

The Young Meteors was really just a glorified list of successful men and women who shaped the Sixties – that extraordinary era that changed everything.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in