The man who gave us Concord

There was an impressive birthday bash in London this week for Haymarket Publishing, the magazine stable established and chaired by Michael Heseltine, the former minister and doyen of past Conservative Party conferences.

The 800-strong guest list - apart from your’s truly, included presumably as a columnist for one of the Haymarket magazines - read like a Who’s Who of the establishment from the 1960s and 1970s. The place was full of Tory grandees from the Thatcher years.

In addition to Hezza there was John Major (Mazza), Lord Carrington (Cazza), Michael Howard (Hozza) and Tom King (Kizza). Francis Pym was too ill to be there. So Pizza was off.

Lady Thatcher herself was absent, which was not a surprise. I don’t know whether or not she had an invitation.

Among the sea of grey hair there was David Frost, Michael Parkinson, Jeremy Isaacs, Stirling Moss, even Mary Quant whose hair, as you might expect, is not grey. I'm surprised that Quant, once described by Bernard Levin as the "high priestess of sixties fashion," is still awaiting a damehood.

Hezza gave an excellent speech with some good jokes. He reminded the audience that the political journalist Tony Howard, used to refer to his old employer as “the slave market press.”

There was also a reference to Heseltine’s prodigious spending while in government, since he was responsible for promoting Concord, The Channel Tunnel, the third London airport and the Millennium Dome. “I want to thank you,” he said. “I always believed that I could spend it faster than you could earn it.”

Parky did a brief session but the star turn, saved for after the pudding course, was Shirley Bassey whose voice has lost none of its power with advancing years. She did a great little cabaret including all the old favourites such as Goldfinger, Something and Hey Big Spender aimed specially at the host.

All in all it was a good do. To take home we were all given a goody bag with chocolates wrapped in tiny Haymarket magazine covers. One thing that struck me was how well everyone looked. The 60s generation was clearly made of durable stuff. The only thing missing, although not missed by me, were the cigars.