The Lady magazine: Madame Arcati Reminisces

The Madame Arcati blog was the first to report on the demise of the British publication The Lady. Four days later, the sloth-like gosser Richard Eden at the Mail picked up the story followed by The Times in which I am quoted (online version). The Lady Limited is being wound up and liquidated as I write. Reportedly the magazine owes £360,000 to HMRC. In addition there will be outstanding sums in wages, writer fees, subscriptions, rent, image uses, etc.

The title had lasted 140 years. It was founded in 1885. Queen Victoria reigned then and Oscar Wilde was yet to frequent London's male brothels with Bosie. Despite subsequent two World Wars and strikes galore it never ceased to come out weekly - even Covid could not interrupt it. It once operated from a grand, off-white Georgian quartet building in London's Bedford Street: as a structure, it resembled Miss Havisham's wedding cake, prior to the crumbling of rejection. Within this sweet place, beyond the front door, one was met by a pub-like hinged counter which would be raised for admittance once it was established that one was not a psycho. All around on the ground floor sales staff worked the phones. I noticed that the word 'advertisement' was pronounced adver-tisement which is not the English way so far as I know.

The editorial floors were upstairs and there you risked life and limb. Past issues of The Lady were piled high in rooms and corridors, along with books and other things. A minor earthquake would have brought these multi-storey collections crashing down on one's head. What a way to go. 'Offices' resembled converted drawing rooms. The editor's office may have once been a bedroom for a child. Getting lost in this labyrinth was one peril.

An old man lived at the top of the building, and he lurked silently about. I understand he was the previous owner of The Lady and related to Ben Budworth who owns the title. There were rumours of a ghost in the basement and a much-told tale we might term 'turd-gate'. The past was very much alive here and that was part of the challenge the magazine faced.

I was hired by Rachel Johnson as the magazine's astrologer back in 2011. Rachel became editor (I think in 2009) and commissioned to drag The Lady into the 21st century. In a sign of sanity and alertness, she was a fan of the Madame Arcati blog and amused that in one story I retitled the The Lady "The Old Cunties' Weekly". On the basis of this (I presume) she asked me to write for the magazine and finally was persuaded to run my horoscope column.

I only met Rachel once, at a Molly Parkin party at the Chelsea Arts Club, maybe around 2012. She had the air of someone permanently in transit, or en route. She purposely homed in on the useful of the guests before exiting fast, Anna Wintour-like. She had other parties to zip through. The one thing Rachel did do successfully was raise the profile of The Lady, or remind the public it was still extant. Channel 4 broadcast a wonderful documentary about life on the magazine (The Lady and the Revamp). Feuds and fallings-out were witnessed that included a nonplussed outgoing features editor, a numpty noisy 'literary editor' and the bereft daughter of the previous editor (who would later ask to be my PA after she got the Rachel boot). 

The documentary I think sealed Rachel's fate. Following one filmed row between her and Ben, she described The Lady as a "piddling little magazine that no one even cares about or reads". This enraged the Budworth matriarch Julia (now sadly passed) who threatened to throw Rachel out of her office window. Thereafter, matters deteriorated further. At some point, she published a Jilly Cooper fiction extract which included the term, "lady gardens", a reference to the nether regions of ladies, not to horticultural matters. The only way was out, though to this day I don't know whether she was fired or she chose to leave.

I think Sam Taylor followed (or she followed Matt, see below) and she lasted two or three years. Everyone agrees she was a very good editor. But when Ben decided to move the magazine out of Bedford Street, Sam was off.  

Someone called Matt Warren followed, once a young star of the Daily Mail. I was seated next to him at a Lady literary lunch one day when he turned to me and said/joked, "We only hire you because you're cheaper than Russell Grant". He was off my Christmas card list after that.

Matt was followed by a Maxine something-or-other. She didn't last long. She scarcely ever responded to my emails. One sensed her distress across the ether. One hopes she recovered.

Ben's wife Helen Budworth was The Lady's last editor and I must confess I always liked her. Glamorous, smart, sharp, Aries (like Ben). She had led the advertising team at the magazine, and was the company's managing director. Her Lady sparkled. But by then it was too late. For decades the magazine had been in decline, and the world had moved on in its moods and tastes. I don't think anyone could turn this great vessel around.  

The Lady social events were always huge fun. Before Helen became editor, Richard Ingrams and assorted gossip-rakes attended the magazine's free 5* lunches. Ingrams always turned to stone the moment he spotted me as if I were a trans-Medusa. Perhaps I am. An exotic dandy called Robin Dutt would diffuse his way through parties and lunches like a Clive Christian No 1 fragrance, but bearing a default grim countenance. This would be replaced by joyful animation the moment his attention was focused on fresh quarry.  

Scarcely any magazine now is in its pomp. Vogue is as skeletal as its models; Vanity Fair a flaccid ego stroke. Reader's Digest is no more in the UK. The same with Glamour. Could The Lady re-emerge in another form in the hands of a souvenir guru dedicated to the service of the rich and famous (or merely well-to-do)? Let's ask Grok.