Night Of The Century

It was a bountiful night of billionaires, worth trillions. They partied like it was 1999, according to the New York papers, a hark back to when the economy was thriving. It had bright lights, razzamatazz and whiskey, with a dash of Stevie Wonder. Forbes magazine celebrated 100 years with panache.

- Chris Bishop

The old man would have been proud. You could find your way to the party of the year, blindfolded, by following the skirl of the pipes and whiff of fine whiskey.

The lowly Scottish roots of Bertie Charles Forbes – the son of a humble tailor of New Deer, Aberdeenshire – were bound up with the celebration of 100 years of the glossy world famous billionaire’s magazine that he founded. Pipers in tartan kilts blasted out the sound of the Highlands at the entrance to the big name party at Chelsea Pier, overlooking the Hudson River, in New York, in tribute to the journalist and entrepreneur. A man who never forgot where he came from and lies buried beneath the damp soil of New Deer thousands of miles across the Atlantic.

Parsimony could have been his middle name. BC Forbes, who grew up poor as a church mouse, was a struggling immigrant to this city who carved out a life by writing about money and avoiding lending or spending it – a lesson for us all. He bootstrapped his magazine to world fame, with a tiny investment, by keeping a careful eye on the pennies.

“My grandfather once asked me ‘how do you make copper wire?’ Simply get two Scotsmen to fight over a penny!” says grandson Steve Forbes, editor-in-chief of the magazine, in his element on stage.

BC Forbes, who worked as a journalist in South Africa on his way to fame and fortune, died in 1954 in New York, the city where he worked his way up from walking the streets, jobless, to the top tables. He was there, in spirit, in the shape of one of his favorite tailored tweed suits worn by grandson Kip Forbes. It was made in the 1940s, yet looked like it was cut yesterday.

“I managed to rescue it from the mothballs and felt it was important to wear it tonight,” Kip told me.

Was his grandfather really that parsimonious?