An Evening at the Athenaeum

AN EVENING AT THE ATHENAEUM

“Who’s Who” is a strange institution, simultaneously seeking to buttress the fiction of the traditional British establishment and to acknowledge successes in avant-garde and popular culture.

The format of the entries includes “recreation(s)”, traditionally expected to be shooting, fishing, golfing, sailing, rugby, cricket and so forth. One of the avant-garde entries, Charles Marowitz, a theatre director of the 60s and 70s (recently deceased) listed his sole recreation as “balling” – by which he didn’t mean croquet or billiards or, indeed, dancing. “Who’s Who” stoically allowed the somewhat tasteless subversion. (Although it could also be the case that the sub-editors didn’t know that “balling” was a hippy slang word for having sex.)

Another item in a “Who’s Who” entry is “Club”. This reflects the days when the its establishment core would, indeed, mostly all belong to a gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall, St James’s Street or thereabouts.  (I suppose that these days one can put “Virgin Active” or the like.)

Most of the clubs are still there, though some survivors have had to amalgamate and many are now gentlemen’s and ladies’ clubs. Athenaeum, Reform, Oxford and Cambridge are broadly for the greater and middling bourgeoisie; White’s Garrick, Boodle’s, Bucks for the more recherché reaches of top society (all among many others).

Some clubs have pretty informative websites, with information on membership applications and costs, clearly inviting new interest (eg Reform and Oxford and Cambridge). With others, you more or less get a blank page with bare contact details or some anodyne brief information about the history of the club and its premises – but definitely no solicitation. This means that one needs to know existing members (to propose and second) in order to become a member oneself – “old boys” (and sometimes “girls”) indeed.

The Athenaeum falls into this latter category, although its website is chattier than most (contrast Boodle’s or Bucks). One is told the history, shown some photographs and given a profile of the club’s membership, past and present:

“The club was founded as a meeting place for men and women [this is disingenuous: women were admitted as members only 13 years ago] who enjoy the life of the mind. Over the years the membership criteria have been widened and now extend to persons of attainment or promise in any field of an intellectual or artistic nature and of substantial value to the community [whatever this latter phrase means].”

The narrative proudly mentions, but does not list, the 52 Nobel Prizewinners who have been members.

I visited the club one sultry evening in July. The occasion was a private musical recital in aid of a charity. But do not suppose that any part of the Athenaeum is vulgarly “for hire” by outsiders. The event had to be hosted by a member. We non-members were there as his guests. One slightly disconcerting consequence of this arrangement was that we were on no account to outstay our invitation. So, at the end of the concert, those who had not chosen to remain for an optional supper were told politely but firmly that they must leave the building. Similarly, as the meal drew to a close our “host” rose to say that he had a train to catch and we must all leave forthwith.

Various things struck me during my brief visit.

The entrance hall is imposing , with its impossibly wide grand staircase rising straight up for what is in effect about

1½ normal storeys. I wondered how many doddery members it has accounted for over the decades (Dickens once gave a helping hand to an ill and dying Thackeray on the stairs).

There is one doddery and narrow lift.

Men’s and women’s cloakrooms are on the ground and basement floors respectively. Our concert was in a third floor room, a goodly distance…

But the main thing about the Athenaeum on that Monday evening was its people. First, the staff are predominately young Eastern European women, including the porter (I was expecting the traditional ex- services or police type). Second, the cream of British intellectual society was not much in evidence. Apart from the concert-goers, the club seemed pretty deserted. The scattering of actual members in the large rooms only emphasized the emptiness, like those few small figures in classical landscape painting whose presence accentuates the vastness of mountains or ruins. The Athenaeum is far from being a ruin, but there was, that evening, something “preserved” about it, similar to the atmosphere of a National Trust stately home just before closing time.

July 2015