‘They are just as you hope they’d be,’ said my colleague Damian Thompson midway through our readers’ tea party today. I knew what he meant: we were actually getting to meet the people we work for, the people we imagine when we’re commissioning or writing stories. You build up a fairly clear idea what they’re like – and what they’re not like. There’s no typical age: today we welcomed readers from 25 to 85. They come from a wide range of backgrounds; architects, students, lawyers, priests, financiers.
And from all over the country: I met subscribers who drove down from Oldham and even Glasgow to join us today. Taki was there, as was Andrew Neil, Mary (as in ‘Dear Mary’) Killen and those of us lucky enough to work in 22 Old Queen St. The weather was blissful, and the food was even better – kindly laid on by our friends at the Belgraves Hotel. As one of my other colleagues put it, the afternoon felt like a mix between talking to strangers as if they were old friends.
It all confirmed to me that Spectator readers are the best-read, best-humoured cohort of people in the land. Age doesn’t matter: young or old they like to be challenged, they have pretty wide-ranging interests. They like a joke, and they have the same two requests: don’t tone down Rod, and don’t tone down Taki.
They get bored with same old stuff from other titles: they seek a wide range of arguments and perspectives, and enjoy reading articles that they disagree with – as long as they’re well-written and well-argued.
All this is what gives the Spectator its magic. Our writers feel as if they’re writing for a close group of friends, and ones they know quite well – so they’re more frank than they’d be if writing for a newspaper read by millions. It was great to meet a few of our friends today; a strange sentence, but one that makes sense in this context. No one works for The Spectator as such; we all work for Spectator readers. This afternoon was a reminder that there is no greater honour.
(To come along next year, subscribe! (From just £1/week) then look out for the advert, in May)
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