“Can we get away with a fanny that big?”

Just to underline the fact that I don’t hate every publisher, I’ve ever worked for I thought I’d share a story from 20 years ago when a much-younger Tony Murray spent two years (1989-90) as photo editor of Mayfair. Back then Mayfair wasn’t the Paul Raymond-owned gash-fest it is now. It was owned, published and edited by Ken Bound, a former sub on the Daily Sketch.

It was Ken’s firm belief that Mayfair, far from being locked away in between tugs in a short-sighted man’s sock drawer, was actually the subject of lofty debate at the high tables of Oxford and Cambridge. Here, he believed, dons and visiting archbishops would frequently discuss the veracity of Mayfair’s World War I tales of derring-do and act with outrage should we mis-caption the wingspan of a Sopwith Cuckoo. The truth, I suspect, was very different.

Ken had a curious collection of aphorisms he used to apply to the subject of journalism – in particular The Three Things Which Don’t Sell magazines. On a quiet afternoon, looking for a little amusement, it was always tempting to insert an anecdote about dwarves into a piece of girl copy. Inevitably, Ken would turn up in the editorial office five minutes letter and say: “Tony, I have to tell you, there are Three Things That Don’t Sell Magazines. One is dwarves, another is barbed wire and the third is…well I forget the third.”

We never did find out the third.

It was a slightly surreal place, where you’d often find the editorial team clustered in the main office and looking up at a slide-projected image of that month’s proposed centrefold with Ken asking: “Well boys, can we get away with a fanny that big?”

My favourite story, though, perhaps took place at Christmas 1990 during the Mayfair party, which were always highly drunken affairs. We started at lunchtime in a wine bar in Holborn and, as this was the last Mayfair party (Ken having sold the mag to Paul Raymond for four million quid), we really went for it.

Sometime in the early evening we staggered back to the Mayfair office. Ken was particularly pissed and soon departed for his private flat on the top floor. The rest of us were left sitting in his office, where we soon spotted the only thing in the building left to drink – a hugely expensive bottle of champagne bought for Ken by the printers as a farewell gift. It took us all of five seconds to decide to drink it.

The next morning, hungover and very much the worse-for-wear, we trooped into the office. A slightly indignant Ken called us all together and said: “I’d just like to know who drank my bottle of Champagne last night…”
Quick as a flash, David Jeffs, the features editor, responded: “Eh, you did, Ken…”

And we got away with it.

The mendacious Mr Jeffs, by the way, is now an assistant editor on The People.