Town Mouse

Yola, the Polish Socrates of north London

tom hodgkinson

In Aldous Huxley’s novel Crome Yellow, published in 1921, when its author was 27, a young poet visits a grand country house as the guest of a literary hostess.

At the party, he meets various grandees. It’s a satire of Huxley’s real-life experiences – one character was based on Bertrand Russell – and he’s obviously fond of his characters, even though he teases them quite mercilessly.

The literary hostess in question was based on Lady Ottoline Morrell, and I was reminded of the book when I heard that Yolanta May had died. Her age was a closely guarded secret. For several decades, she insisted she was 29.

Yolanta, or Yola, the wife of the late literary critic and nature writer Derwent May, was, like Ottoline Morrell, a grand literary hostess, and I was lucky enough as a teenager to frequent her parties and salons, being pals with her son Orlando.

They took place in the 1980s on the first floor of the May house at 201 Albany Street, near Camden Town.

Yola was Polish, had a severe black bob, like a 1920s flapper, and called everyone ‘darlink’. If you had dinner there, you would eat borscht and find yourself sitting opposite Beryl Bainbridge. The only person Yola permitted to smoke at the table, Beryl would often nod off while her fag smouldered in the ashtray. While giving you more borscht, Yola would prod your back and say, ‘Moments! moments!’ This was her way of telling you to sit up straight. She was training us to be civil.

At her salons, you’d be happily chatting to one guest when Yola would pull you away by the elbow and take you to meet another. This might have been momentarily irritating, but I now realise it was being extremely generous and I’m grateful for having been hauled around. She wanted everyone to get to know one another, even us 17-year-olds with our bleached hair and earrings.

I remember chatting with writers Peter Vansittart and Alan Ross, editor of the London Magazine, and thinking, this is a nice world: boozy, smoky people, who read and write books.

If you were lucky, Yola would take you to meet Kingsley Amis. He was the only guest who was allowed to sit down and not required to circulate. He could remain confident that people would come to talk to him, being so grand. So he sat in the corner with a slightly grumpy expression and held court.

What a privilege to have met these greats when young! And there’s another thing that Yola did for us younger poets: she gave us social confidence. Once you’ve spent time at slightly scary parties with the likes of Beryl Bainbridge and Kingsley Amis, lesser mortals such as politicians, bankers and Jeffrey Archer tend not to intimidate you.

Thank you, Yola. As Holly Golightly says in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, ‘Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot.’

And we certainly need a shot of confidence now that parties are coming back. For many – in particular the slightly introverted – lockdowns provided a welcome break from social functions. So I asked the great partygoer, Gogglebox star, agony aunt and Oldie contributor Mary Killen, for some tips for town mice venturing out into polite society once more.

Mary says you must not worry that others are looking down their nose at you. ‘No one is thinking about you and how inadequate you are. They are all thinking about themselves and what you think of them.’ It’s your duty, therefore, to put people at their ease.

To anyone who is really nervous, Mary suggests finding a spot near the door, and staying there, so you can make a quick exit if necessary. If you get stuck with someone, you can try gradually widening the space between you until someone else fills it, and then dash off. Either that or attempt the glasses trick: carry a second empty glass with you. That way, you can say that you are on your way to the bar.

When chatting to people, says Mary, you must really concentrate and listen to what they are saying. ‘But don’t keep nodding your head and going “Mmm.” ’

I would add a bit of advice from Socrates, who, as well as being the inventor of philosophy, was a dab hand at a drinks party – or a symposium (literally ‘drinking together’ in Greek), as they were known in ancient Athens. Socrates said, don’t talk about yourself. If you boast, you will not be believed. But if you are selfeffacing, you will be believed. So best to avoid the subject of yourself altogether.

As for tips for hosts and hostesses, Mary reckons it’s imperative to mix the ages. ‘The young are there to provide glamour. The old must be there, so we can learn from their civility.’

Yola knew all this when she asked us youngies to join the oldie greats at her symposia. RIP Yolanta May, the Socrates of north London.