In 1969, The Spectator’s leading article appeared on the cover. The first of that year was headed ‘The Old Boys’ Club’ and declared: ‘The Commonwealth is an Old Boys’ Club, whose members’ only universal characteristic is the entitlement to wear the Old British Colonials’ tie.’
Last week Nicola Sturgeon, responding to remarks by Sir David Davis in the Commons in which he accused her of lying, got her lawyers to issue a statement: ‘This member of the “Old Boys Club” has been spreading conspiracy theories on behalf of the late Alex Salmond since 2021.’ No apostrophe this time. Perhaps lawyers charge extra for those.
An old boys’ club is different from a boys’ club – or in the north, a lads’ club. Andy Burnham was photographed two years ago outside Salford Lads Club (no apostrophe on the sign) because it featured on the gatefold of the Smiths’ album The Queen Is Dead.
Last year we read about ‘concerns that the “Boys Club”, which critics claim surrounds Sir Keir, were targeting senior female ministers’, as the Mail on Sunday put it. No apostrophe there either, but the point was that the club excluded girls.
For the socially exclusive nexus, we talk about the old boy network, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as ‘an unofficial or covert association between old boys or other old friends used for mutual assistance, especially favouritism’.
In the background is the separate American notion of a good old boy (first recorded in 1882). The OED defines this as ‘a white male of the rural southern United States regarded as exemplifying traditional southern values; an easy-going man; a “man’s man”.’
I asked my husband what a man’s man was. He didn’t know, but said he hoped to become a dear old boy. The classic anecdote illustrating that tells of Millais painting Cardinal Newman’s portrait in 1881, when Newman was 80. The painter pointed to a dais and said, ‘Oh, Your Eminence, on that eminence, if you please.’ When Newman hesitated, Millais exclaimed: ‘Come, jump up, you dear old boy.’ But Newman was a saint, which my husband is not.
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