A First Taste of Rejection and Failure

"You know, we'd love to do it for you, we really would. It's just..."

I could sense there was a hammer blow being readied, as I sat outside my student flat, phone squished against my ear, awaiting the verdict of the girl's unnaturally straight-laced voice at the end of the line.

"Please, go on," I said.

"It's just, you're not a real Lord, are you?"

It was more crushing than I could ever imagine. Not a real Lord? In what sense was I not a real Lord? I sat in silence for a second; my face reddening and warming despite the cold air. I hadn't yet experienced anyone questioning my status since I had started out. I needed to know what she meant by not real. Of course I was real.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand," I said, trying to stay calm. I had my deeds. I knew the score.

"Well we hadn't actually heard of you prior to your email, so we checked Debrett's and they didn't have you listed...We assumed this was some kind of joke, sir."
I reminded her it was Lord, not Sir, and that it wasn't a joke. Why would she assume it was a joke, anyway?

"I am a real Lord, I'll have you know. I recently purchased some land in Lochaber, Scotland. One square foot. I may not be in Debrett's just yet, but I will be, soon enough." The comment sounded more than a little desperate, in retrospect. It was all I could think of saying, at that point.

"That's all well and good, but we always use Debrett's as a guide to the peerage..."

Damn Debrett's - I should have known. I had been wondering how significant not yet having my name on the 'list' would end up being, and now it was clear - it was extremely significant. Especially when you were trying to get a green suit made for you overnight by a bespoke tailor on Savile Row.

"We'd be happy to offer you a pre-cut black suit if you came in tomorrow, but as far as green is concerned, there's absolutely no chance. We'd have to make it from scratch, and well, you're just not important enough for us spend all night doing it..."


...OK, so she didn't actually say that last bit. She did say something along those lines, though. I just didn't happen to be listening because I was thinking about how it was now official -I'd failed the challenge Imants had set me. I'd let the whole of The Eccentric Club down. Or at least that's how I felt. Would they still want me in? I wasn't to know. I definitely knew I wouldn't be wearing a green suit to tomorrow night's Convivial Meeting, however.

"So there's no chance..."

"Not unless you suddenly tell me you're the Prime Minister or something. There's just not enough time otherwise, I'm sorry."

I told her I was the Prime Minister, but she chuckled to herself before breathing awkwardly down the line and waiting for me to speak. It was still a No. I decided to accept my fate and thanked her for her time, informing her I wouldn't be needing the black suit. What use would it be if it wasn't green? I already had a perfectly good grey one to take with me in any case, I didn't see the point. I looked up into the sky as spots of rain started to fall. I felt so damn dejected.

You see, up until that point, everything had been going swimmingly. I hadn't had much by way of reply from any of the Savile Row tailors I had emailed, but it hadn't mattered, because I'd been contacted by a suit shop in Redruth, Cornwall, who had told me they could get me a green suit made of tweed. I would have bitten their hands off if they hadn't been declaring this to me over the phone. Instead I decided to accept their offer, before hanging up and yelling whoops of delight down the aisle of the bus I was sitting on.

At the time, I didn't give it much consideration, because I'd been so excited I hadn't taken note of the date. It was to be shipped down from a manufacturer in Hertfordshire and arrive for collection on the 27th January. No sweat, I told myself. What could possibly go wrong? It was only the day before I was due to head over to London. There wasn't likely to be any problems, right? Plus they had given me a discount price for the rental of the clothing and offered to throw a tweed flatcap in, half price, if I was interested. At the risk of looking too much like a Guy Ritchie-wannabee, I turned the cap down and opted for just the jacket and trousers.

Over the following days I couldn't get a particularly striking image out of my head - me walking down Dover Street in Mayfair, looking country-dapper in my tweed suit jacket and trousers. There was no way this wouldn't help me fit in with The Eccentric Club. Plus it wasn't too overbearing for the first visit, which would make me feel less self-conscious at the event. I almost imagined myself as a slightly greener version of this rather dashing young man:



Aside from also not being a Chinese boy in New York, of course. But you get the idea - I was preparing myself to look good. The day of collection arrived without me even thinking of getting in touch with the Savile Row tailors once again, to give myself a back-up plan.

The problem was, the hours ticked by. I rang the shop over and over. The suit had yet to arrive. It wasn't an issue though, their deliveries were always late. As long as I was patient I would get my suit, and then I could head over to Redruth to pick it up.

Then, I received the phone call I had been dreading, around 4pm.

"I'm so sorry sir, our delivery has arrived. There appears to have been some kind of error..."

My tweed suit just didn't show up. They told me it would probably arrive the next day, but it dawned on me that I had to get a 7.23am train from Truro, and there was no chance of it being there by then and I couldn't change the tickets, I didn't have the budget. I pleaded with the shop for something else, but it was no use. With limited stock they could provide me with hunting gear, but that was it. Plus hunting gear wasn't available to rent. I'd have to spend hundreds and hundreds of pounds, just to end up looking like a turkey hunting turkey. If I was intent on wearing something green, I'd need to wait until the delivery the next afternoon.

I was distraught by this. The excitement of the green suit wasn't going to materialise. I cursed myself for having no foresight; I should have given myself another option to fall back on. I frantically rang around tailors and suit suppliers in Cornwall and London, but most of them were shut by now or just dismissed me as a lunatic; or even worse a fraud, like the lady on the phone. That was the nail in the coffin. The kick in the teeth. There was just no way I would be able to get what I wanted in such a short space of time. I'd be going to The Eccentric Club the following morning looking as dull as ditchwater, with some dishwater thrown in.

Lord Christopher Ward

An email to the tailors on Savile Row

From:
Lord Christopher Ward
To:
**********************

Good day.

I recently became a Lord and was subsequently invited to an open evening at The Eccentric Club in Mayfair on the 28th January. Unfortunately, the dress code I have been given for the evening is 'green suit', something I confess to not being in ownership of. It is also something I confess to not really wanting to purchase either, so I was wondering if you had any green suits in stock that I might be able to 'borrow' for an evening's dining? If you don't, would you perhaps be willing to make me one for the function, on merely a one night loan? Please let me know your thoughts, either way.

Thanks
Lord C. Ward

The Green Suit

So - it turned out Imants Von Wenden of The Eccentric Club hadn’t been winding me up. I really had been cordially invited to attend an evening in the company of fellow Lords at The Arts Club in Mayfair.

With his confirmation finally assured, I wanted to begin planning the finer details of my trip straight away – where I would stay, who I planned to talk to, what my approach would be, what I would need to do to push for membership – it had been a few years since I had been to London, and as shameful as it sounds, the thought excited me in the way a holiday to France used to excite me as a small child. It was so horribly cliché; yet a trip to London actually felt like a big deal. Comparing the number of visits in recent years, it was probably more foreign to me than a trip to France, too.

The whole experience was likely to be quite different for me in any case, so I felt I could justify needing some time to prepare. Unfortunately, I didn’t get such a luxury, because in the email I had previously sent Imants requesting clarification of the invite, I had made the mistake of querying exactly what I should be expected to wear for the occasion (The Eccentric Club website pictures a man with a birdcage on his head; I didn’t want to turn up looking underdressed). Anyway, in a fashion I would soon become accustomed to when exchanging emails with the wonderfully enigmatic Eccentric Club secretary, I received the following, rather off-the-cuff response:

“ One of the organisers of this party wondered whether you would be prepared to come all dressed in green [suit, probably] or change at the club into green, perhaps? We’ll explain everything about that peculiar request when we meet. If you would rather be in a more traditional attire, we most certainly will understand.”

I was completely thrown off guard. I had no idea where to start with this request. A green suit. Who owns a green suit? I gave it some thought, but could only think of leprechauns as an obvious example; or Tiger Woods receiving his green jacket for winning The Masters golf championship at Augusta, for some reason. I was pretty sure that turning up as either a leprechaun or a golf champion wasn’t exactly what Imants was after, though. Plus it wasn’t a great time to be replicating Tiger Wood’s style, let’s face it. I decided to trawl through the internet for inspiration, instead. The first image I came across was this rather fetching example:


Feel free to photoshop my face onto this one if you like.

I felt it probably wasn’t wise to attend dressed as a 1970’s Harlem pimp either, though. Eccentricity or no eccentricity, going dressed like this was probably going to be a bit much for most people to stomach at 7.47pm - just after dinnertime. I decided to investigate the possibility of finding a normal suit that just happened to be green, instead. This would allow me to blend in subtly with those around me, whilst not failing in my attempts to achieve the goal I had been set.
It was depressingly slim pickings. There just aren’t many respectable green suits out there. Plus, when I did find decent suits that were definitely green, they were always unbearably expensive; it began to feel ridiculous. I thought about emailing Imants to tell him there was no chance of me adhering to his request, but then an idea suddenly popped into my head. A Luke Skywalker moment, if you like. Use the title, Chris. Use the title. I gathered together the email addresses of all the top tailors in and around Savile Row, and set about putting a few ‘feelers’ out, courtesy of Lord Christopher Ward...

With Status Comes Great Responsibility

The same day I sent my email to Imants von Wenden (club secretary of The Eccentric Club) requesting clarification that I really had been invited to attend their club, I received a slightly bizarre letter in the post:

Click on the picture to enlarge

It appeared that somebody had donated my vital organs to the National Health Service (once I'm dead, obviously) without my knowing. Anyway, at first I passed it off as a lame attempt at a prank from one of my wonderfully resourceful friends. It's the kind of thing my friends like to do, so it made perfect sense. Then, speaking to one of my university coursemates about the obscurity of the letter, I was reminded that organ donation can't be officiated without some kind of signature of recognition being given from the person in question.

All of a sudden the letter seemed slightly surreal. I didn't recall signing off my organs for donation at any point in the recent past? It seemed like a pretty big decision to make too, so I felt confident I would remember it, if I had indeed signed something. Staring at the piece of paper, I felt bemused. Who would have gone to the expense of masquerading as me, just to pull a prank like this? It wasn't even that funny. Its not like they would have been there to see me open the letter, either. It seemed kind of pointless.

That's when it hit me. My title was in front of my name on the envelope and on the donation card, just before my address. Suddenly, it all made sense. The NHS obviously considered me someone of 'high stock' now I was officially a Lord. Clearly, it was the law for someone of my stature to pass their organs onto somebody else when I die. I was a Lord for God's sake. Of course it was the law. Initially I was annoyed that I hadn't even been notified about it, but then I thought about the lucky person that would one day get to be part-Lord too, and that made me feel better about myself. It appeared that finally I had something to offer the world. Even if it was to be random pieces of my insides.

Lord Christopher Ward

Merry Christmas and an Eccentric New Year

Over the Christmas period, things finally started to take off. My title was beginning to get me somewhere. First of all, the Eccentric Club responded to my email positively, suggesting I might be worthy of membership at their distinguished outfit. Then their club secretary, the magnificently named Imants von Wenden, kindly decided to give me the contact details for some other members of the organisation who might be considered potential associates. I couldn't quite believe my luck - I was now in possession of some genuine connections.

Despite this, I initially held off from emailing anyone straight away. It just didn't feel right; as if there was something tangible missing. Something set in stone that could give me a reason to get in touch with them.

Then, on the 21st December, that something arrived, via an email that read as follows:

Invitation to The Eccentric Club, Mayfair- 28th Jan 2010.
From:
The Eccentric Club
To:
ci_ward@yahoo.co.uk

The Eccentric Club Invitation:

You are being cordially invited by the Committee of The Eccentric Club (following a recommendation by one of our members) to join our monthly Open Convivial Meeting on the 28th of January 2010, Thursday, at 7.47pm. The meeting will take place at the Arts Club, 40 Dover Street, Mayfair, London W1S 4NP (nearest underground station - "Green Park").

Our Monthly Open Convivial Party is designed as a joyful and merry evening, full of entertaining conversations, drinks and nibbles, performances by the Club members and the surprise guests, and the unique opportunity to get acquainted with the existing members of the Club.

Fun goes hand in hand with social networking here - come and rub your shoulders with the world’s leading artists, fashion designers and performers, lawyers and politicians, members of the aristocracy and the eccentric inventors. But this is not just another networking club – as all our guests are carefully selected by the organisers and privately invited to attend.

Entrance is free, but is a subject to our Confirmed Guest List. A full cash bar will be in operation for the guests. Dress code: smart/casual or smart/eccentric. Ties & scarves: black or eccentric (in their colours/design).Please announce yourself to the Porter upon your arrival as a guest of the Eccentric Club.We are looking forward to seeing you with us, for more information please consult the following websites: http://www.eccentricclub.co.uk/
http://www.theartsclub.co.uk/

Please confirm your attendance of the event by email as soon as possible.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Best regards,

I v W / Club Secretary

As if this wasn't enough, the very same day I received a Christmas card sealed in a golden-lined envelope, confirming the meeting and wishing me a Merry Christmas:

I was finding this slightly hard to fathom. The Eccentric Club was actually inviting me into their club. OK, so it wasn't membership, but it was the next best thing. It was an opportunity to finally meet some other Lords that I now shared something in common with - recognition by The Eccentrics. After all, the invite had stated that it had been by recommendation. I had to confirm with the club secretary that this was really true. That they really were inviting me to mingle with aristocracy. I turned on my laptop and started to think about all the things I would need to do, prior to jumping on a train and heading to London at the end of the month.

Lord Christopher Ward

The Eccentric Lords

Whilst awaiting a response to my initial email, my bid to join The Eccentric Club had me asking myself one pivotal question. Does being a Lord and being an eccentric go hand in hand?

I hadn't considered this question prior to my discovery of this illustrious club; but the more research I did, the more I realised that becoming an eccentric was probably integral to my continuous development as a Lord. Especially if I wanted to get closer to achieving the goals I had set myself at the start of my project. After all, it was obvious I would need to meet other Lords at some point in order to do this, and with no success coming by way of a positive response from The House of Lords administrators, The Eccentric Club appeared by far and away my most likely source.

I started rummaging through the club's list of members, past and present, as well as looking for 'Lords' via the Google search engine. Before long I was able to go some way towards answering my pivotal question. It appeared eccentricity was quite a common trait amongst pretty much every person I happened to read about. Here are just a few select examples:

Lord Lonsdale (1857-1944) - Member and one-time President of The Eccentric Club

Lord Lonsdale was an iconic member of the Eccentrics. He was known as 'The Yellow Earl' for his love of the colour yellow, and was an avid fan and participant in various sports, not least boxing (during the days when it was still illegal to participate) where he became such an important figure that a certain boxing equipment company was named after him. He had brief stints at being chairman of Arsenal Football Club and President of the AA (who adopted the colour yellow in his honour) and was a lover of cigars and foxhunting. He was also known for his part in a now 'infamous' wager with another eccentric over whether a man could circumnavigate the globe and remain unidentified.

Lord Bath (1932 - present) - Associate of The Eccentric Club

Lord Bath is perhaps the most instantly recognisable of all the Lords, often being publicised in the national media for some of his suggested eccentricities, but more accurately known as the owner of Longleat House, and the land in which Longleat Safari Park resides. He is well-renowned for undertaking the writing of what could potentially be the most monumental of all autobiographies (although not yet complete) which, at last count, was over six million words long.

Lord Berners - (1883 - 1950) Frequent Guest of The Eccentric Club



Lord Berners was arguably the most eccentric of all the Eccentric Club affiliates, renowned for his talents as a composer, novelist, painter and aesthete. He developed a taste for unique behaviour from a very young age; and undertook experiments such as trying to teach his dog to fly by throwing it from a window (based on the premise that if you throw a dog into water, it instantly learns to swim). As far as is known, some of his experiments were failures. In later life, he was the owner of a pet giraffe and was believed to have had a 100 foot viewing tower constructed outside his house with a notice at the entrance reading: “Members of the Public committing suicide from this tower do so at their own risk."

Lord Longford (1905 - 2001) - Not affiliated with the club, but still eccentric


Lord Longford, left, with the Queen and Princess Anne

Lord Longford, though on occasions deemed to be highly controversial, is remembered for his acts of liberalism and most of all, his strong beliefs. It is said he was a man of paradoxes, having been born and raised an aristocrat, a Protestant, a Conservative and a supporter of British control in Northern Ireland, only to end up becoming a Roman Catholic, a socialist, and a backer of the Irish Republic. He is also well-renowned for his slightly bizarre 30 year-long efforts to secure the release from jail of Moors murderer Myra Hindley.

Unfairly nicknamed 'Lord Porn' in the 1970's for his attempts to have pornography banned because of its degrading nature, he was also famous for his 'Pakenham Leap' during World War Two, where, on landing in Germany to take up a new post, he failed to notice that there was a delay in the wheeling out of the plane's door-steps, only to walk out and fall ten feet through the air onto his face; smashing his spectacles in the process. Whatever appears to be said about the man, there is no denying it is a commonly agreed fact that his life was riddled with acts of eccentricity.

Lord Christopher Ward

The Eccentric Club

Eventually, after a week of waiting, I received a response from the House of Lords regarding the email I had sent them about my recent purchase of a title and my request for a seat within the house:

'Thanks for your email. For information with regards to inheriting a title please contact the Head of the Crown Office, email address: ************'

It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for. I forwarded the original email on to the personal address they had given me, and sat back to ponder what my next step was going to be.

Suddenly, as if by magic, an email (from a source that will remain nameless) appeared, with the web address of a prestigious club it was assumed I might be wise to check out with more than a little detail. I clicked on the link.

'The Eccentric Club'

I had never heard of this club before. I mean I'd heard of 'The Brilliants', but 'The Eccentrics'? I wanted to know more. I read about the club's history: - formally known as 'The Illustrious Society of Eccentrics', it seems that anyone who is anyone in the peerage and gentlemen's game has been associated with this Mayfair-based organisation for over two hundred years now.
Having only recently been resurrected in 2008 from 19 years in the 'gentlemen's club wilderness' (the old club had been made homeless before finally finding an agreement to share house with 'The Art's Club' on 40 Dover Street, London), the club operates with the sole intention of being a meeting point for many great and original minds, (and as the website specifies, a place for 'the cultivation of eccentricity').

I was slowly becoming open to the possibilities of the club. I read on. The Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles were honorary lifelong members. This was serious stuff. I read the list of actual members: Charles James Fox, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, William Lamb (Lord Melbourne), Lord Melbourne?! It had Lords as members? I continued reading the list; Lord Denman, Lord Campbell... There were plenty of members who were Lords, this was perfect!

I had a brainwave; I would check out what I would need to do to apply. I clicked on the 'contact' page and wrote them an email explaining my situation, as well as my credentials for potentially joining and becoming an 'eccentric'. I suddenly envisaged myself as the new Phileas Fogg (or perhaps Willy Fog, the animated lion version); making high-stake bets with other Lords over rights to estates and access to the 'special key' to Buckingham Palace (have you heard about that rumour?). It could be amazing. So what if the House of Lords don't instantly take to me? I had another way in that was just as exciting. Another route to improving my life through the use of my title. I would bid to become a member of The Eccentric Club.


Man with a birdcage on his head.
Just another member of the 'The Eccentric Club'.
For more information click on the photo and follow the link.

Lord Christopher Ward