Sir Nicholas Coleridge: ‘I went to Prince Andrew's 21st birthday party disguised as a chauffeur’

He's no longer at Condé Nast, but Sir Nicholas Coleridge can't help but edit me in real time. He gives me a quote about Boris Johnson that he’s not happy with and is so hyperaware of how the interview format works that, at the end, he asks me to omit anything he said that would make his life a little difficult. This seems strange coming from the journalist who, as a young hack at The Standard, once pretended he was a chauffeur to sneak into Prince Andrew's 21st-birthday party to get gossip.

‘What would you do if you were writing this up?’ I ask him. ‘Would you take out things that would make the interviewee’s life more difficult if they were published?’ He replies: ‘I'd probably do what I want anyway.’ It is this characteristic brazenness that led to his 30-year tenure at Condé Nast, which saw him described in 2012 as ‘magazines' most compelling advocate for almost two decades’.

Nicholas was born in London, the son of David Coleridge, and distant relation to the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. His career began as a reporter on the Falmouth Packet newspaper in Cornwall. He then got a job at Tatler, working for the iconic Tina Brown, ‘a marvelous person to have as your first boss’ who was ‘completely talented and completely ruthless’.

A mass firing meant he was Brown’s deputy after just a year. He was subsequently poached by The Standard after meeting its then-editor at a dinner party. Later, he became the editor of Harpers & Queen, which has since switched the ‘& Queen’ out for ‘Bazaar’.

After this came his role as group editorial director of the British arm of Condé Nast. He later became the president of their international arm. ‘I spent a huge amount of time on aeroplanes in those last 10 years,’ he recalls, detailing how a typical week could see him in London on Monday, Moscow on Tuesday, Mumbai on Thursday and back in his home in Worcestershire by Friday.

He is a man who wears many hats — and always has. His most recent are chairman of the V&A Museum, provost of Eton College and chair of Historic Royal Palaces.

Aged 69, it is strange to be living at his old school, he says as we sip coffee in the wisteria-covered gardens. ‘Never in one million years would I have thought I would come back.’ Eton is an institution that is at once unchanged and entirely different. It is now more international, with a wider curriculum and, famously, much higher fees. (In 1970, when Nicholas first started, boarding at Eton cost approximately £900 per year. Today it costs approximately £65,000.)

He is married to Georgia Metcalfe, an author and healer, and they have four grown-up children. Nicholas evidently has a passion for all that he does. The boys at Eton are ‘very fun, very unentitled, very helpful, polite, amusing’ and working for Historic Royal Palaces is a dream. ‘You’re not allowed to have favourites, but I will say that the two that begin with “H” I very much like,’ he says.

He doesn’t miss being a journalist, he tells me. However, given that he wakes up every day at 5am to read a variety of newspapers and still has subscriptions to a stack of print magazines (including Country Life) I don’t believe him. There is a glint in his eye as we chat, a small sign of the mischief and charm that made him such a success in the publishing world, and which is still very much alive and well today.

Your aesthetic hero

Charles Moore, Baron Moore of Etchingham; His Majesty The King and Nicky Haslam.

A possession you would never sell

We've got an Indian statue in our house in Worcestershire that I bought literally on a whim in a reclamation yard that I would be really very sorry not to have. I also have a portrait of one of the princes of Bihar in India, which I bought 35 years ago from Spink, in the days when they sold paintings.

Philip Mould, before he was a famous art dealer, found it for me. Back then it was a very large sum of money for me, £6,000. I bought it, but then Spink rang me to say that another gentleman had been interested and would like to buy it from me. He offered me £20,000. They couldn’t tell me who it was but they said he was an American who worked in fashion and I had a sixth sense that it was Ralph Lauren. The sales person didn’t confirm this but said: ‘Goodness, you’re very astute.’

An exhibition that really impressed you

The David Bowie exhibition at the V&A was one of my all-time favourites. There was a very good exhibition at Kensington Palace called From Crown to Couture which was, I thought, great. Also, at the V&A, the Dior exhibition.

A book you’ve found inspiring

Night Crusader by Ronald Welch. It was a children's book which inspired me to firstly be very interested in history, and secondly to read every other book by Ronald Welch. My party trick used to be that people could ask me any question about anything that happened in a Ronald Welch book, and I would know because I had read them so many times.

A hotel you could go back and back to

Devigarh, about 30 miles outside Udaipur. I would happily die there — but I hope I don’t.

The last thing of note that you bought for yourself

I bought a painting by Josephine Trotter of the late Queen's funeral, and I'll show it to you on the way out.

The music you work to

I work in silence and I like to be quiet. I don't like any music on at all, and I can work anywhere, having worked in a newsroom, but I do prefer to write with pen and paper. I use those American yellow legal pads, and all the books that I have written, I wrote by hand.

The items you collect

I collect Indian miniatures.

What you’d take with you to a desert island

Suncream and a cocktail shaker.

Your favourite painting

I'd most like to be the owner of The Birth of Venus. I would also say that there's a whole series of paintings hanging in the city palace in Udaipur which are aerial depictions of Udaipur with enormous amounts of village life, princely life and Maharajas. One of those enormous Indian bird's-eye pictures I would adore to own.

The last podcast you listened to

I listen to Rory Stewart speaking to Alastair Campbell quite a lot. I think Rory and Alistair's views are increasingly merging into one, they seem to be going that way. I listen to William Dalrymple and Anita Anand’s podcast Empire a lot, too. I think they are extremely good hosts.

The thing that gets you up in the morning

My addiction to reading news online.

The person that would play you in a film of your life

I would like to be played by the young Michael Caine.

The most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten

I went to Korea for The Spectator just before the Olympic Games were held in Seoul [in 1988]. I was sent to see if I could find anywhere which was still selling dog, which was the national dish, but which the country had stopped in the lead up, realising how countries thought about it. I had a very nice small taste.

The best present you’ve ever received

Can I say something so cheesy? My children. I can't think of anything that I've, in the long term, enjoyed more.

For more information and to purchase a membership to Historic Royal Palaces, see here.