Men for the Debs' Delight

Growing up in England, I was always acutely aware of the class divide - that people from working class families in the north were not expected to make anything of themselves, and, in order to prove the point, were mostly not allowed to make anything of themselves.

I can well remember visiting the home of a college-mate boy from Beaconsfield, who told me afterwards, with little to no regret in his voice, "Mummy told me not the bring the girl with the awful accent to her house again." This wasn't Lord Beaconsfield's house, or Sir Baron Smugly of Beaconsfield's house, it was the house of the class that's normally called "middle" in England. (Though in the US it would be "upper".) I remember him once boasting that the house had "half an acre" which was admittedly more than my parents' council maisonette had, but wasn't exactly impressive landholder level. Nevertheless, they were better than me, and not only knew it but were happy to tell me so.

There was a time in the late sixties and early seventies when it seemed this sort of thing was dying out.  People with accents were allowed on the BBC, a few working class people got rich, entrepreneurs were encouraged, Mick Jagger hung out with posh birds and so forth. I held a semi-firm belief that a meritocracy might blossom. No such luck; though I don't live there anymore, the word I hear is that the Establishment is not only back in force, it never really went away. It just pretended for a while, until people like Boris Johnson could walk the streets safely.

This pictured Guardian article contains the passage: Peter [Townend, of Tatler] is widely credited as being the man who single-handedly kept the debutante “season” going for decades; he would suggest to parents that their daughters should be debs that year, and wouldn’t they like to host a party? I was what was called a “debs’ delight” – one of the men chosen by Peter to attend all these balls and dances.There would be two or three a week for the three months of the season, in London or at someone’s house in the country. All the men and girls were supposed to be available. It was a bit like the Young Conservatives used to be 20 years ago, a bit of a matchmaking thing.

The pictured event is from 1982, when Kitchen Sink writers and rock stars living in Cheyne Walk were a thing of the past.