Upstairs Downton Abbey

Yesterday was the third annual Veuve Clicquot Polo Classic.  It was held in Will Rogers State Park in the Pacific Palisades, and I’m sure the creme de la creme turned out to cheer on their favorite teams.  Remember Pretty Woman?  And that got me thinking….

They play polo in Aspen, too.  Snow polo.

The balls are red and the ponies are shod with special cleated shoes.  The rules are a little bit different than regular polo, but then again, everything is just a little bit different in Aspen.

Aspen, the one-name-only “Cher” of towns, has a very unusual social caste system.  It’s fluid.

All ages and both sexes mix freely.  A seventy-year old woman and an ten year old boy might- and often do-share a chair lift.  And unlike Chicago, say, or New York, where money and success determine who you are and who you hang with, in Aspen, the mountain is the great leveler.

Rich or poor, it doesn’t matter.  It’s all about the Salomons.

Or the Volkls.  Or the Blizzsrds. Or Burton Snowboards- though you have do that on Snowmass Mountain or The Highlands.

Social success is not determined by the size of your bankroll or the number on your private Gulfstream jet.  The locals have a different measuring stick.

It’s about skiing or snowboarding and how you feel about it.  And how well others think you do it.  What you don’t say about your own ability speaks volumes.

In Aspen, modesty counts.  After all, this tiny town houses more Olympic athletes per capita than anywhere else on earth.  So it’s in your best interest to underplay all physical accomplishments.

The best skiers, when asked how good they are, will turn a diffident eye and say “I can get down.”

Translation:  You’ve just met Andy Mill or John Clendenin, or Weems Westfeldt, or Mike Farmer.  In Aspen, these guys are rock stars, and much too modest to say so.  That’s the code.  (Sorry I blew your cover, guys.)

But other people notice, trust me.

This is the long way around the polo barn to explain how Mike got to be such close friends with two aristocratic British couples, who, for privacy purposes, will hereafter be known as Liz and Phillip, and Liz’s sister Meg, and Meg’s husband, Tony.

They had admired Mike and wanted to go skiing with him.  He was happy to oblige.

They wanted to continue the relationship off piste, as well.  He was happy to oblige.  They were fun, interesting, kind, enthusiastic- and oh those accents.

Mike thought that I would like them.  He thought that they would like me.  Soon the six of us were out on the town.  They would stay for the month of March and you can become pretty close chatting it up night after night.

We had them to dinner at our house.  We met their children and step-children.  They met my son and our Scotties.  And this pattern repeated itself for several years.

Liz and Phillip kept urging us to visit them across the pond.  Rumour had it that they had nice little digs somewhere near Gloucestershire.

So, one August, after attending the Edinburgh Fringe Festival with my brother and sister-in-law, Mike and I flew down to London, stayed a night at the legendary Connaught Hotel, (OMG)  and then it was on to Liz and Phillip’s place… let’s call it The Grange.

It turns out skiers aren’t the only ones who practice modesty.  This humbly-named home turned out to be a legendary estate where Phillip bred polo ponies for the world-famous team that he owned.

Suddenly we were transported, lock, stock, and shooting stick into another world.

It was Edwardian England, 1909, and I was surrounded by earls, and duchesses, and Wembley rifles, and man servants, and dressing for dinner, and magnificent specimens of horseflesh and even more magnificent specimens of manhood- sexy Argentinian polo players, and castles, and chukkas, and Cotswald cottages, and chefs, and groaning boards heaped with English country breakfasts, and duck for dinner- with bread sauce.

And it was the opening of grouse season.

The morning’s grouse hunt would begin by each “gun” drawing a silver disc from a leather pouch.  This would determine the order in which each hunter would shoot.  Mike was a very good shot but he had lost his taste for it after ten years as a Marine.  He graciously declined and merely acompanied the others as they stalked their game.

The ladies and I would repair to the unbelievably quaint village for luncheon, sightsee at the unbelievably fabulous, historic, local castles or loll around chatting and getting ready for the grand four star dinner ahead- where we would inevitably meet up with the unbelievably spectacular owners of the aforementioned castles we had visited that very day.

This was Rules of the Game meets Remains of the Day– minus the Nazis.

At one memorable dinner, I was partnered with some haw haw Colonel Blimp type right out of John le Carre’s The Honorable Schoolboy.

“You’d looove Malaysia,” he drawled at me.  “Absolutely love it, I say.”

I would?  Righty-o, I would.  I was now more British than Big Ben and if he thought I’d love Malaysia, he’s alright, Jack.

We returned again in November to celebrate my birthday.  Another longer visit to the Connaught was called for, followed by a flying visit to Oxford (which I knew intimately from reading Gaudy Night, Love in a Cold Climate, and Brideshead Revisited hundreds of times.)

Then back to The Grange.

The foals I had petted in August were just as adorable, our hosts even more so.

They decided to fete me with a surprise dinner party all whipped up by their nephew’s wife, who hadn’t let her aristo origins get in the way of becoming Mick Jagger’s personal chef.

I am not making this up.  If anything, I am underplaying the fab-ness of the whole thing.

Then it was Meg and Tony’s turn to play fairy godparents to us Yanks.  They lived near the Duke of Bedford in Buckinghamshire, and so over we went.

They didn’t raise polo ponies.  They raced antique automobiles.

And just when I thought it couldn’t get more English or picturesque, it turned out that Tony’s mother’s vet had been none other than Alf Wight, better known as James Herriot of All Creatures Great and Small.

This was heady stuff for a rabid Anglophile like me.

All four of them were incredibly kind, generous, and modest about their worldly goods, serious accomplishments, and noble connections.  They were just too grand to be snobs. They treated Mike and I to the time of our lives and gave us indelible memories of an unique world.

And I owe it all to the great equalizer- Aspen Mountain.

Ta.