Revival on Queen Vic Street
A ‘gentlemen’s club’ of the 19th century gets ready for the 21st
In the early 1990s, the editor of the Cape Argus invited my boss, the chief subeditor, to lunch at the nearby City and Civil Service Club. A jacket and tie were discovered in a dusty corner of the newsroom and the chief sub went off eagerly, only to return having been “taken off at the knees”, as he put it, by an infamously irascible editor.
Legs also featured at a more enjoyable lunch at the Herbert Baker-designed club, recalled in 2014 by former Cape Times editor John Scott. He was among those bidding farewell to a retiring colleague, and wrote: “It was a most convivial affair, as such lunches tended to be, and as we staggered out into the first-floor gallery the guest of honour’s pants dropped to his ankles. He seemed incapable of pulling them back up, so we had to do it for him...
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