What a swell party!

As coronavirus kills off Christmas parties, Charlotte Metcalf remembers friends who made the evening go with a swing

- Charlotte Metcalf

COVID-19 has put paid to that most British of seasonal institutions the Christmas party. Many will feel relieved to have escaped the obligation to feign festive jollity. We’ve all been hemmed into the corner of an overheated, noisy room by a bore, with only a small glass of sour, warm wine for consolation.

It’s easy to forget that a good party can lift the soul. It can restore our capacity for joy, convincing us the world is brimming over with fun and excitement. Yet the art of throwing a great party is as magical and elusive as alchemy.

The painter Lindy Dufferin (aka the Marchioness of Dufferin and Ava), who sadly died in October at 79, knew how to do it.

She was our editor’s godmother and, in the summer of 2019, she threw an Oldie party for him at her Holland Park house, to which I was lucky enough to be invited. Her knack was to appear delighted to be opening up her beautiful house and garden, sharing her good fortune rather than flaunting it. We all stayed long after dark and agreed we’d had an astonishingly good time.

The recent deaths of writer Derwent May, 90, and Sunday Telegraph editor Peregrine Worsthorne, 96, triggered memories of another legendary party hostess. Margot Walmsley (1914-97) worked for Encounter magazine, scandalously discovered to be funded by the CIA, and edited by Mel Lasky, the American anti-Communist leftie.