TROUBLE ON T'ESTATE
The press: Paul Johnson
looks at the magazines for well-heeled rustics
MOST of what is written about the North- South economic divide is nonsense, and it is manifestly untrue that the Thatcher years have made the poor poorer. But it is equally obvious that she has made the rich richer, and many of the middle class well-to-do. This has had a marked effect on publishing, especially on magazines which cater for those among the upwardly mobile who regard rustication as the surest sign of ascent. Such papers are flourishing and multiplying, so you might think that all is well in the small, interrelated world which produces.them. Not at all.
Take the case of Country Life. Until a year ago it was, granted its aims and market, the most ingeniously, edited pub- lication in Britain, a nicely calculated mix of art and sport, highbrow and middleb- row. Someone said recently that when a man is 30 he starts to think of buying a Corby trouser-press. Equally, when a man's income passes, say, £25,000 a year, he drifts into getting CL regularly. Given its rising commercial success, its editor Marcus Binney reasonably asked for more funds to develop its winning formula. The owners, the huge and bureaucratic IPC, treated this as lese majeste. So Binney left and was replaced by a woman, Jenny Greene. I can't say I'm happy with the changes she has introduced. Many of its best contributors remain, such as their hunting correspondent, Colonel J. N. P. Watson, the veteran writer on art sales, Frank Davis, and that first-class historian of country houses, John Cornforth. But there has been much nervous fussing with typography and layout, none of it neces- sary; the number of readers' letters, one of the great features of the paper, has been reduced, and in the 14 January issue there was no major article about a historic house — in my view a serious lacuna. Binney himself has set up his own magazine, Landscape. As a monthly, Priced at £1.50 (CL is weekly, £1.20), it is an alternative rather than a direct rival. But, after only four issues, it is already a formidable piece of work, distinguished by some exeellently chosen and brilliantly presented colour photographs on unusual subjects, such as the camouflage techni- ques of butterflies. Unlike CL, its January issue does have a big house article, on Allerton, the Victorian palace in York- shire, restored by the American entre- preneur Dr Gerald Rolph, who among other claims to fame markets the marvel- lous Tandy machine which is now trans- forming my journalistic life. Binney's lay- outs are more masculine and authoritative than those now favoured in Country Life, though the captions are typographically weak and too short. The book reviews are decidedly better. It has the timely innova- tion of a law column and, in general, is on the ball and topical. I can't believe that even the IPC desk-wallahs still believe they did the right thing.
There has been a similar ruction at the Field, a celebrated but ailing paper which had been steadily improved by Simon Courtauld, who tripled the circulation in three years. The owners, another big group, which forms part of Lord Rother- mere's empire, were impatient for profits and wanted, I suppose, to break into new yuppy advertising markets. At all events they became dissatisfied with Courtauld's intelligent and thorough but necessarily gradual revitalisation of a traditional pro- duct, and got rid of him. What they want is not yet clear because the January issue was substantially produced by Courtauld him- self. It seems to me a skilfully balanced mix for the Field reader, slightly downmarket, socially and intellectually, of Country Life, and with a more distinct whiff of the open air, a magazine for people who do, rather than own. I find it hard to believe that Rothermere's people can greatly improve upon this presentation of the formula, and what I fear is that they are going to change the balance, throwing in smarty-boots material to appeal to the townee weeken- der, who is not so much a countryman, more the rus in urbe type.
No doubt the big wheels of the magazine groups have been made envious by the resounding success of Interiors, the up- market (2.50) colour magazine created by Kevin Kelly and Min Hogg. This is a wish-fulfilment publication about what rich people with good taste are doing to beautify the insides of houses all over the world. The formula is simple and repeti- tive, with the occasional variation (this month a fascinating article on David Dun- combe, the freehand plasterer), but words cannot describe the cunning with which the subjects are chosen and the stunning quali- ty of the illustrations: you will have to buy it yourself.
A point or two downmarket (at £1.10) but aimed essentially at the same kind of mentality is Country Living. Like CL and the Field, it is owned by a big group, National Magazine Co., but they wisely let the editor, Deirdre McSharry, get on with it. She has her own formula, chiefly I'd say for the weekend folk, and very competent- ly she manages it. She also does women's fashion (evidently considered a must for these papers) much better than the others. But she has a taste for well-known names and my one complaint is that they tend to be a bit urban. In the January issue we have Brian Redhead on frogs, Germaine Greer on gardening, Paul Barker on village sociology — doesn't one go to the country to get away from these metropolitan types?
Finally, there are the unreconstructed, unyuppified country magazines, with no pretensions to be anything else. Horse and Hound (weekly at 80p) does not worry about layouts and typography, so long as it gets all its masses of material in. It dppeals to a huge and growing audience of racing and hunting types, trainers, owners, stable lads and horsy girls, and runs exasperated editorials with titles like 'Is This the Last Straw for Small Studs?' Its gossip column is called (getting the order of priorities right) 'Horses and People', and its hunting notes are signed by `Tantivy', `Trotwood' and 'Whipcord'. What more could a modern Surtees ask?
On the same utilitarian lines, but for a different audience (gamekeepers, preser- vers, etc) is the Shooting Times (weekly 80p). Its masthead features a high-minded quote from King George VI: 'The wild life of today is not ours to dispose of as we please', but the paper is clearly about what Jane Austen, with her usual succinctness, called 'game to guard and to destroy'. If you turn to an article called 'Watergate Revisited' you will find nothing about Nixon (it concerns a big shooting estate in Sussex). Others are on 'The Late Bird Trend' and 'The Schizophrenic Pheasant'.
Readers' letters express concern that the Hungerford horror may lead to 'anti-gun legislation' and worry about the 'knee-jerk reactions of politicians'; they hope that decisions will be left to those with enough of what they call 'grey matter' to 'see things in their proper perspective'. One persistent problem which faces this paper is how to distinguish between guns as weapons and as people. They solve it by the use of capitals. Thus: 'We try to avoid using photographs of shooters standing around with closed guns. However, on this occa- sion this was the only photograph available of all the Guns.' See?
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