In 1991, a caucus of middle-aged public-school chaps half-jestingly set about launching a magazine with what seemed a terrible name, The Oldie. (‘Why not Old Bastard?’ suggested one reader.)
Actually, John McEwen the art critic – now our Bird Man – says the idea came to him in a dream: a magazine for elders, called not Saga but Sage. Richard Ingrams, late of Private Eye, and Alexander Chancellor, late of the Spectator, met over a pub lunch. They were taken with this notion: an antidote to the cult of youth; a riposte to all things new-fangled – ‘the ugly debris of the 20th century’, as Ingrams put it.
Auberon Waugh and Patrick Marnham came on board. Stephen Glover, co-founder of the , was approached for advice about backers; he became their fourth investor. Nobody was over 54, but all (despite protests from some potential buyers) was to be the name.
