THE PORTLAND CLUB
by Elena Jeronimidis

Basildon stood, his face very pale, looking intently across the table at Bond. Then he walked slowly round the table, scrutinising all the hands. What he saw was this:

And suddenly Basildon understood. It was a laydown Grand Slam for Bond against any defence.

This hand, featured in 'Moonraker', was played by Agent 007 in seven clubs doubled for £150 a hundred, £1,500 on the rubber, and a side-bet of £400 a trick on the side. The contract made, thus meting out a deserved punishment to the cheat Drax.

Whether in fact this hand was ever really played at the Portland Club, the oldest and most famous Bridge Club in Britain, is a matter of speculation. What is certain is that the taste for gambling, as well as the abhorrence of cheats displayed by the author, well reflect the ethos of the Portland Club of which Ian Fleming was a member.

'He was a very timid player,' says Stuart Wheeler, Chairman of the club's Card Committee. Although this is difficult to believe of the creator of James Bond, perhaps the shyness displayed by Fleming at his favourite bridge club was the consequence of being put in the shade by more flamboyant personalities. David Naylor reports how, back in the 1950s, the then Chairman was being pressed to name the best player in the club. He was far too diplomatic to put a lot of noses out of joint, but he agreed to name the worst player: 'That's easy,' he said, 'it is always the Duke of Marlborough's partner!'

The 177-year-long history of the Portland Club has been enlivened by several clashes between idiosyncratic personalities. In his memoirs, Serjeant Ballantine recalls how Lord Lytton, a member in the 1890s, had conceived a mortal antipathy for a 'very harmless man of the name of Townsend.' Lord Lytton believed Mr Townsend to bring him bad luck, and would never play when that gentleman was in the club.

In fact, the club's very name seems to have originated from a dispute amongst members. First founded as the Stratford Club (a name derived from the Stratford Place House where it began its meetings in 1816, with six dozen packs of cards and ten gallons of oil for the lamps) the club was dissolved, reconstituted and renamed the Portland in 1825 purely to get rid of one objectionable member who could otherwise not be expelled. The club, however, remained at Stratford Place until 1890, when it moved to the corner of York Street and St James's Square. There it stayed until towards the end of World War II, when it took up quarters in a house in Charles Street, Mayfair, where the basement provided shelter against the London bombing.

In 1969 the Portland moved to Half Moon Street, where the club hired a room from the Naval and Military Club*. Although females were admitted by the host club, they were barred from playing at the Portland, where, until fifty years ago, only men of at least forty years of age and with an income of no less than £10,000 a year were permitted to join. These criteria must have been not so much the result of benevolent concern for the young, as the expression of a very lively preoccupation that members might not be able to pay up. The rules for admission were probably wise, minimum stakes being £10 per hundred, with goulashes and side bets being the norm.

Even today, members are only allowed to join if introduced by a full member and only after being vetted both at the bridge table and at one of the dinners which the Portland Club holds on Mondays. Major Collyer, the Secretary in 1925, was quoted as saying that one candidate who had dined and played a rubber was generally considered to be acceptable, until at the end of the rubber he was so 'outrageously effusive' that he actually ventured to shake hands with his partner, congratulating him on winning. That was the end of him: he might as well have put his knife in his mouth at dinner.

These stringent rules make for an exclusive membership which is, in any case, limited to one hundred. Such a small number can but enhance the Portland's international reputation. After the introduction of Bridge to Britain in 1894 by one of its members, Lord Brougham, the Portland Club published the first Laws of Bridge in 1895 and has had a major say in every revision ever since. Indeed it is on account of its voluntary services to card players all over the world that the club has achieved its pre-eminence: members of the Card Committee meet regularly to answer any questions put to them, and their decisions on the Laws of Bridge have been, and are, accepted everywhere in the world except in America. After the last war the Committee was enlarged to include representatives from the Home Bridge Unions.

Bridge at the Portland Club has a unique feature: almost no conventions are allowed, only Culbertson Strong Twos and, most daringly, the Take-out Double. This suits the members, who call the tune: the club is a members' club and professionals are not allowed to join. They are invited to a few events, such as the 'Natural v Scientists' Match organised by Portland member Demetri Marchessini, and his annual Pro-Am tournament, but their regular attendance is not deemed desirable. As one member put it, 'I don't mind payin' for a fellow's race-horses - but I do object to payin' his rent.'

*Since this article was written, the Portland Club has moved premises again.