Capital club gains a link with Groucho

For years Soho’s Groucho Club has been a haunt for London’s chattering classes and a by-word for glamour. But now the Scottish chatterati are being offered a chance to bypass the two-year waiting list.

Members of Edinburgh’s Hallion club will be allowed access to the legendary Groucho Club under a reciprocal arrangement with the trendy Soho haunt.

Hallion co-founder Fiach Maguire yesterday said it was a reflection of how many London- based people were now joining the Hallion.

Mr Maguire said: "The Groucho is probably the first of these latter-day clubs and really set the scene and the tone for all that has followed. We have a slightly more broad church in terms of membership although we do have a strong representation from the arts and media world. But we are delighted to be associated with them, it will be good for our members to have a haven in London and very good for their members as many spend a lot of time in Edinburgh, particularly during the Festival."

Founded in a four-storey Soho town house in 1984 it was seen as an antidote to fusty Edwardian gentlemen’s clubs.

Persuading a small circle of literati to invest 1,500 each, its founder Tony Mackintosh named the club after a quip by comedian Groucho Marx who once said: "I don’t want to join a club that will accept me as a member."

Its original membership was drawn from the publishing world, but being in the bohemian Soho district it quickly became a haunt for London’s chattering classes. The waiting list for membership soon stretched to six years.

There are now more than 4,000 members including a large cast of celebrities ranging from Shallow Grave star Keith Allen, Melvyn Bragg, the writer and broadcaster, Salman Rushdie, the novelist, and Stephen Fry, the actor and comedian.

Reciprocal arrangements are not new. The Edinburgh Arts Club enjoys links with a variety of clubs around the globe including the exclusive Chelsea Arts Club, and the favoured club of the Scottish establishment the New Club has more than 120 reciprocal arrangements across the globe.

Brigadier Charles Ritchie, secretary of the New Club, said: "Reciprocal arrangements merely mean that when you are with a club you then have the opportunity to visit other like-minded kindred spirit clubs where you can also stay and feel at home when you go there and their members do when they come here."

But sources within the industry say a number of people in Edinburgh and London are joining Scottish clubs to make use of their access to their more expensive and exclusive London counterparts.

Author and Scottish socialite Roddy Martine welcomed the news: "That sounds very promising and would be a very good reason for joining the Hallion. The Groucho, although very media-based, is great fun and a good place to go to meet lots of fun people.

"I rather like the idea of reciprocal arrangements for it means one always has a place to stay home from home as it were."

A spokesperson for the Groucho Club said it was not policy to comment on membership.