Once the city coffeehouse trend of the 1700s had faded, it was the gentlemen’s clubs which slipped into place and gradually became more refined and exclusive. At their peak there were four hundred such clubs, for men only, but today there are far fewer. Membership criteria ensure that only the select few are allowed in and the hefty annual fees can only be afforded by the rich.

Most clubs are aligned with certain interests, such as the armed forces, theatre or sports, and they tend to be regarded as Tory territory.  Their luxurious facilities include bars, restaurants, gaming rooms, libraries, gyms, swimming pools and bedrooms. They are valued by their members as a haven of quietude and privilege.

Most of the prestigious gentlemen’s clubs are concentrated in the St. James’s area of London, just across from the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. The oldest is White’s, founded in 1693, which includes royalty on its members’ list. Brooks’s and Boodle’s both date from 1762 and then a spate of clubs opened in the first half of the nineteenth century. This coincided with the Houses of Parliament being partially burnt down in 1834 and MPs needing to have alternative private meeting-places.

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The Poet Laureateship is an honorary royal appointment of a poet who is recognised as contributing to the national literary body of work. Wordsworth, Tennyson, Betjeman and Hughes have all held this honour. The first Poet Laureate was John Dryden, installed by King Charles II in 1668, but he was dismissed twenty years later by the next King for being a Catholic. In the chain of Poet Laureates since then, all but the last three have held the post until they died.

When Sir Andrew Motion was chosen in 1999, he asked for it to be a ten-year term only. On his departure in 2009, he said that he was glad he did it, but he was glad it was over. The Poet Laureate is expected, but not obliged, to write poems for national and royal occasions, so there is a degree of widespread appraisal involved.

He was followed by Dame Carol Ann Duffy, who was the first female Poet Laureate. The current post-holder is Simon Armitage (pictured above) and he is the twenty-first. There is an annual salary of £5,750 and along with this traditionally comes a butt (equivalent to four barrels) of sherry, though some Poet Laureates have received a cash alternative.

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