Exclusive gents’s membership welcomes first Saudi Arabian member

No gentlemen’s club is prouder of its reputation as a bastion of the Establishment than White’s, founded in 1693 and lying just a couple of hundred yards from St James’s Palace. 

But is change afoot behind its bow-windows, through which generations of noblemen have looked disdainfully at the outside world?

I ask because the club, where King Charles held his stag night before his wedding to Lady Diana Spencer, has, I can disclose, elected a member who, on occasion, dresses in billowing robes and headdress.

Not a woman, of course – the fairer sex remains rigidly excluded, though White’s once or twice tolerated a visit by Queen Elizabeth, a photograph of whom, surrounded by well-nourished members, now adorns its loos.

I refer, instead, to Khalid bin Bandar Al Saud, Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United Kingdom. 

‘I think he’s the first ever Saudi to make it,’ a devotee of several St James’s clubs tells me, adding that the process of being ‘put up’ for membership of White’s is full of pitfalls.

By way of example, he cites the case of an eminent hotelier who, aware that he faced being blackballed, asked the member who had proposed him how his page in the candidates’ book was looking. ‘Well,’ came the reply, ‘think of a bowl of Beluga…’

Evidently, no such indignity was suffered by the 46-year-old ambassador – helped, perhaps, by the fact that he was educated at Eton, in common with a sizeable percentage of White’s members, Nicholas [now Lord] Soames among them.

Nor will his marital connections have harmed him: his wife, Lucy, with whom he has two daughters, is a niece of Ralph Percy – the Duke of Northumberland.

No one at the Saudi Embassy was available to comment on the ambassador’s private arrangements. White’s declines to comment, though it may feel it’s pulled off a bit of a coup.

The late Lord Charles Spencer-Churchill – known as ‘Nutty’ – invited the similarly named Prince Khaled bin Abdullah to join him for tea in the White’s tent at Ascot, but was turned down. ‘I leave Saudi Arabia at this time of year to get away from tents,’ explained the Prince.

Dame Kristin Scott Thomas transformed Scarlett Johansson into a Royal Navy captain in her debut as a film director, North Star, last year. 

And for her second-in-command, she cast Mark Ebulue, an alumnus of the London Nautical School, after they bonded over their naval backgrounds. 

‘Kristin told me how her family were entrenched in the military,’ he tells me at the launch of Los Mochis London City. 

Dame Kristin’s grandfather captained World War II destroyer HMS Impulsive.

Minnie misses marriage 

She missed out on an Oscar for her role in Good Will Hunting, and now Minnie Driver says she’s missing out on marriage, too.

‘No one’s wanted to marry me,’ wails the actress, 54, who has been with American film-maker Addison O’Dea since 2019. 

Minnie, whose exes include Matt Damon and Josh Brolin, adds: ‘He doesn’t want to get married for lots of hilarious reasons. I said, ‘Can we just have a party because I want dancing and speeches and food?’

Why was Chrysalis Records boss Chris Wright so reluctant to release Ghost Town, The Specials’ 1981 anthem? 

‘Wright wanted a gong,’ former Chrysalis PR Chris Poole reveals in Too Much Too Young, a new book about British ska. 

Ghost Town was ‘too political’ argued Wright, who concluded ‘it would never be a hit’. 

Wiser heads prevailed and Ghost Town topped the charts. Wright eventually got a CBE for services to the music industry — but only in 2005.

Sophie gets in the spirit of the show 

The late Queen was never happier than when revelling in the Royal Windsor Horse Show, not a day of which she’d miss.

So she would have been delighted that her favourite daughter-in-law, Sophie — now the Duchess of Edinburgh — was getting fully into the spirit of things yesterday when she and Prince Edward joined Princess Anne at the show’s second day.

Sophie’s good mood seemed to be enhanced after she’d enjoyed a little hospitality, downing a shot of something which undoubtedly broadened her smile.

Dame Maureen Lipman has explained why she won’t be following the inspiring example of Angela Rippon, 79, and competing on Strictly Come Dancing.

‘I love to watch it, but I can’t bear to be criticised in public because then I get really nasty,’ admits the Coronation Street star, who turns 78 next week.

‘I was asked a few years ago, but I’m not good at taking criticism.

‘I love dancing, but there’s no point me going on Strictly because if you’re the old bag, then you get thrown out in week four’.

Long associated with low pay and a constant turnover of workers, the Royal Household is expanding its search for staff. Its new £35,000-a-year recruitment adviser must develop ‘new and existing partnerships’ with agencies and other third parties.

‘We’re looking for an experienced and passionate recruitment/HR professional to lead a wide variety of recruitment campaigns,’ explains the advert on the royal website.

‘We’re a wonderfully diverse organisation. The sheer breadth of roles will present you with some truly fascinating, and often unique, challenges.’