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Death of a clubman

Mark Birley: a man who was right in everything

David Tang

Wednesday, 29th August 2007

Mark Birley really knew how to live

Yet with all his occasional charm and attractiveness, he was also infuriatingly stubborn and grumpy. His sarcasm, rooted in his general disdain for hoi polloi, was sulphuric. He must have made a lot of people, family, friends and strangers, scream out loud in despair. When he tried to light up a cigar in his room at the Cromwell Hospital, the nurse was reduced to tears. As she stormed out, Mark muttered after her, ‘And don’t go sneaking on me!’ But that was the price for his eccentric joie de vivre. I wonder if he is now not trying to start all his clubs again in heaven. I can just imagine him telling God how to get lunches and dinners right. Mark wouldn’t hesitate confronting God. And I daresay he would give short change to Margaret Hungerford who thought ‘beauty is altogether in the eye of the beholder’.

Nonetheless, Mark was upstaged at least once in his life. It was at Harry’s Bar in the early days when mobile phones were introduced. He noticed a member using it at the other end of the room. He summoned Mario, the maitre d’, and asked if he could ‘kindly find out’ from the member to whom he was trying to speak on the ‘vulgar’ mobile. Mario came back and bowed, ‘Mr Birley,’ he reported, ‘Mr Moran was trying to ring the bar to find out when the f*** his bellini was coming.’ It was a very rare ‘touché’ for Mr Birley.

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