Auberon Waugh and the Academy Club

I was digging around some old files yesterday when I came across some pictures taken in the short-lived Academy Club in Soho. It may sound frightfully posh but - as I recall - the 'club' comprised two dingy rooms with bare floorboards, a smattering of wooden tables and chairs, and absolutely no heating. It was straight out of the 19th century - but it had charm and, most important, a bar.

It also attracted some very interesting people. This was because the founder of the Academy Club was Auberon Waugh (above left), whose equally Dickensian office - where he and a small team edited the Literary Review - was right next door. "Seeing Bron in the Academy Club drinking and smoking over the bridge table," wrote writer and broadcaster Charles Glass, "brought Hogarth's city back to me like nothing else. So wonderful to be, and be with, scoundrels and cads and rakes, while, outside, the dullards count their lives in coins."

Bron was a long-standing supporter of Forest and after I became director he invited me to the club for a drink and a chat. (This was an enormous thrill because, as a student in the Seventies, I was a huge fan of his columns in The Spectator and Private Eye.) I had no idea what to expect - I half thought he was going to offer us a substantial donation - but it turned out HE wanted Forest to give HIM money so that, each month, he could organise a party at the club and invite his friends (and contributors)!!

He did this in such a charming way that I couldn't possibly refuse. (I also thought it would be an opportuntity to mix with the great and the not so good.) And so, for a year until his death in 2001, Forest 'sponsored' a series of parties at the Academy Club.

Once a month we would climb the rickety staircase and 40 or 50 people (journalists and authors, mostly) would squeeze into this tiny space and bottles of red and white wine would pass - liberally - from one table to another. Inevitably, it was very smoky - even when we opened all the windows - but no-one seemed to mind. Guests arrived early (before seven) and rarely left before eleven.

Sadly, the parties stopped when Bron died (see obituary HERE). He was the glue that held us together and without him few guests had much in common. I would love to revive the concept - on a well-heated, rooftop patio, perhaps. We just need a host who is known, loved and admired by thousands of people. And available. Not much to ask.