Profile: Rachel Johnson
Journalist and editor of The Lady
by Rosemary Lauder
Rachel Johnson leads a very busy life. In the space of little over an hour, she bade farewell to a house guest, made me a cup of coffee, sat down for about five minutes while we chatted, showed me the cottage next door where she spent some of her childhood, and her father’s farmhouse on the other side of her own home, then took me up a steep hill to her neighbour’s for a drinks party, and returned to greet her lunch guests. This, it would appear, was a typical morning.
I went to see what kind of woman had been appointed editor of that most respectable of old-established magazines, The Lady, who was also a Johnson, daughter of the respected Stanley, a former MEP, and sister of the charismatic Boris, a family definitely not short on talent but hardly conventional. Other family members include an artist and a film producer. Somehow The Lady did not seem to fit with the family image.
The stronghold of the Johnson clan is very secluded, reached by two miles of unmade track winding alongside a stream up a deep valley, not far from Winsford, in the heart of Exmoor. The Doones could have hidden out here without any difficulty. The three Johnson properties are close together, two traditional farmhouses with barns and outbuildings, and a younger cottage. Rachel’s grandparents moved here over fifty years ago, buying a 500-acre hill farm. They were not, Rachel told me, very successful as farmers, but they fostered a deep love of their Exmoor valley that has stayed with Rachel and her father ever since. Stanley, whose life is probably just as busy as Rachel’s, lives in the original farm and is a well-known local figure. When the adjoining farmhouse became available ten years ago, Rachel did not hesitate. Her career demands, and those of her husband who is the National Trust’s communications director, mean that a London home is a necessity, but whenever they can they decamp, with their three children, to their Exmoor home.
“When we moved in, nothing had been done to the house for a very long time,” Rachel told me. “It was a question of virtually rebuilding it, or leaving it pretty much as we found it.” And that was the decision they took. The back porch has an assortment of wellies – all in sober colours, no trendy floral or spotty patterns – and workmanlike jackets. A black Labrador cross called Cocoa greets you happily. The overwhelming impression is of a much-loved family home completely lacking in any kind of designer chic. The smell of wood smoke mixes with cooking smells from the Aga. Faded curtains hang at the original old windows, the furniture is comfortable and very well worn. No plastic windows or doors, no brilliant white woodwork, no co-ordinated colour schemes. This year central heating has been installed, to the great delight of their three teenage children. But there is still no television.
Rachel, a slender rangy figure with a long stride, has the typical fair colouring of her family. She looks completely at home, which indeed she is having known the place since childhood, much of which was spent in the adjoining cottage while her first schooldays were spent at Winsford First School which, she says, she loved. “It was hard work for my mother though; she had to walk the two miles to the road with me and my brother Alexander (aka Boris) with Leo in a pram. We were picked up by the local garage man, called Philip, in a Land Rover and I couldn’t understand what made my parents laugh when I called him Vullup – Philip in a broad Somerset accent,” Rachel recalled. She also has fond memories of a happy childhood, picking plums, climbing trees, the endless wooding, damming the stream and tickling trout and generally running wild over the hills, where she still loves to walk. “I remember making crumbles with granny in the kitchen, and helping to feed the lambs, kept warm by the Rayburn, and how hard they sucked on my fingers; grandfather playing chess and the generator turning off at ten o’clock – sometimes it was too cold to get out
of bed.”
She always wanted a career in journalism, and was the first female graduate to be employed by the Financial Times, followed by a spell at the BBC. In between bringing up her family, she has been a columnist for several national newspapers and magazines, currently writing regularly for the Sunday Times. She is also the author of three novels and has just finished her fourth. When I met her, Rachel had been editor of The Lady for four months. It was always going to be a challenge, for to most of us it is a nice, safe magazine that we read when visiting elderly relatives, or sitting in the dentist’s waiting room. It was only actually bought when looking for holiday accommodation – or for a new cook/nanny/butler if you aspired to such things.
The Lady first appeared in 1885 as a ‘journal for gentlewomen’, and it is still owned by the same family who founded it. It contained articles on such things as etiquette, gardening, how to treat the staff, domestic hints and recipes. Later on it built up its reputation as THE mart for domestic staff, governesses and overseas positions. Holiday agencies have undermined its long lists of B&Bs and self-catering accommodation, but it is still a valuable publication in these areas. Rachel found herself replacing a 72-year-old editor who had been at the helm for eighteen years – with a circulation of 30,000 and an average age of seventy for the readers. I bought the issue for 27 October, and it bore no relation to The Lady that I remembered. On the glossy cover was a photo of Kate Middleton in country gear, and a headline ‘Playing the Field – The Lady’s guide to country pursuits’. Contributors included Norman Tebbit, Toby Young, Carol Klein, Mary Killen and Nicky Haslam. Inside was Jessica Fellowes on how to get on with the locals, an article on ‘The Lady Gun’, and another on how novices should behave in the field, while the cookery was on chutneys and game. It was highly readable.
Rachel gives the impression of being a country woman at heart – she may well be different in Notting Hill – and although she does not ride herself, she wrote a well-researched article for the Daily Telegraph in 2004 in support of hunting. You can read it in full on her website, but the conclusion is worth quoting: ‘So while I do not hunt, I will defend to my last breath the right to do it ... [and I] support the conservationist consensus that the Red Deer survive because of the hunt, and not in spite of it.’
Not only is The Lady still owned by the original founders – they sold off the sister title, Vanity Fair, some time ago – but it still occupies the original offices in Covent Garden. Rachel describes them as ‘very Dickensian’ completely lacking in chrome and plate glass – which is perhaps why she feels so at home there. Taking on the editorship was, she said, so very different from anything she had done before, and breathing fresh life into an old favourite, she found the challenge irresistible. It should prove an interesting combination.
