The Sloane Set: Return of the Ranger

In 1982, The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook introduced us to Hooray Henry and his friends. Since then, their world has fragmented beyond all recognition – or has it? In this extract from their new book, Peter York and Olivia Stewart-Liberty discover how Sloanes have changed

The Sloane is a beast almost unrecognisable from 25 years ago. Back then Sloanes were still top of the pile despite the fact they rarely did anything remarkable: they were solicitors, the City, the Bar, publishing, the Army, auction houses, wine merchants, land agents or farmers. Recognisable and dependable parameters secured the Sloane world. And all this was given a helping hand by the Sloane network of Old Boys, cousins and family friends. It was an enclosed monoculture.

Sadly, those certainties have gone. A lot has happened to fragment the Sloane world in the intervening years, from the "Big Bang" (the deregulation of the City in 1986) to the tornado who was Diana, Princess of Wales. Suddenly just being a Sloane was not enough. As the world became more interested in Celebrities, a good name would no longer guarantee that you'd make the cut – and the Old School Tie didn't work any more. The American banks made it clear: they wanted the best men and women for the job, not just the person whose father had been at school with a descendent of the original banking family.

Overnight the Old Boy Network upon which the Sloane world relied started to unravel – splintering into thousands of impoverished shards. What little wealth some Sloanes had was annihilated by Lloyds a decade later.

Yet, as you'll see over the next few pages, the Sloane is a hardy beast. Whether they went Turbo Sloane, re-invented themselves as Sleek Sloane or rediscovered a lucrative version of the land as Eco Sloane, the Networks were re-forming along new lines. As the old saying goes: you can't keep a good Sloane down...

Meet Chav Sloane

Bella, 30, went to Benenden and then to Oxford (Brooks) where she read History of Art (2:1). She grew up in Hampshire but you'd never know it to look at her: with her year-round tan and white-blonde hair you'd be more likely to think Alderley Edge. She works as a "brand ambassador" for an Italian designer with several shops in London, including one – conveniently – at Brompton Cross. She (semi) lives with her boyfriend, Chas, on the King's Road but while the location is fabulous, the flat is minute. The main problem is her shoe collection: 124 pairs at the last count (Jimmy Choo, Christian Louboutin, Manolo Blahnik – many of them free from the designer).

If it was only she who collected shoes, that would be – just about – all right. The trouble is, her boyfriend collects shoes too. He has over 50 pairs of trainers including several sought-after designs. And for some reason – perhaps because he spends most of his time round at her place because he shares his South Ken house (it's been in the family since it was built) with his various brothers, uncles and cousins – he chooses to keep them all in Bells' tiny one-bed. In spite of this, she loves her boyfriend, not least because he is a DJ favoured on the celebrity circuit; not only does he know Prince Harry, but his job also means that Bells and her friends are a fixture on the guest list to the VIP room at parties all over London.

Chas has a title though you'd never know it to look at him, or indeed to listen to him. He drops his "h"s, says "later" when it's time to leave and in fact speaks such good mockney you'd be forgiven for assuming that he'd spent his childhood in the East End not Eton.

Chas recently bought a white Porsche and a number plate off a friend: " GR8 2 B ME". Everyone knows the number plate and so it takes about two hours to get the one mile from the flat to Sloane Square as they have to stop every 30 yards to say hello. Bells looks great getting in and out of that car: Dior sunglasses (she lives in them!); deep tan (sprayed-on once every two weeks); D&G, Joseph and a white platinum and diamond necklace in the shape of a "B" which Chas bought (and she chose).

Her prize possession – apart of course from her teacup Schnauzer, Elvis – is a photograph of herself coming out of Boujis holding on to Diddy (or is it Puffy?) last June – wearing a fur coat (him not her!). He invited them on his yacht a couple of weeks later but 12 months on and she's still waiting for his call!

More Chessex (Chelsea girls infused with Essex joie de vivre) than Chav, Bells rejoices in herself, knows how to pose to best advantage when being photographed and would like nothing more than for Chas to ask her to marry him. She had fantasised about getting married at Highclere Castle in Berkshire – her family have known the Carnarvons for years – until Jordan went and had hers there.

The first time she took Chas down to meet her parents, you should have seen their faces! After lunch her father took her aside and said: "Your mother's a bit worried. What does Chas actually do for a living?" Bells had laughed and assured them he wasn't a drug dealer. The revelation that he had a title seemed to do much to soothe their fears: her father emerged garlanded in smiles and offering invitations to this and that, even on to his boat.

Chas's real name is Constantine Charles, which Bells discovered in Ibiza last year when she saw his passport. She finds it wickedly funny – especially as he goes mad whenever she mentions it!

Meet Eco Sloane

Ben, 36, lives with his wife Tara, 32, and their baby, Uma, on the upper two floors of a house in a square at the north end of Ladbroke Grove. He was the first in the square to attach a wind turbine to his roof– and the first to take it down again: contrary to the information on the DTI's wind-measuring website, this part of west London does not boast enough air movement to supply a household's electricity let alone generate the anticipated surplus that Ben was looking forward to selling back to the national grid. However, at least their friends – and neighbours! – know that they've tried.

Planning permission has come through for their solar panels to go up next spring, halving household energy consumption. "Oh, good," said their downstairs neighbour, some kind of policy adviser to the shadow cabinet who was a couple of years below Ben at school. "I wasn't sure how keen I was on having a windmill on top of the house!" Ben and Tara have dined out on this for several weeks: isn't the Opposition Party supposed to be about the environment?

Ben and Tara met at a fundraiser organised by a well-known Eco Sloane. Back then Ben had been invited in his capacity as the employee of an American bank (which happened to be looking for a "Green-wash"). And it was there that he underwent his Damascene conversion. Among ageing rock stars and Green-friendly supermodels, on a wonderful stretch of lawn somewhere on the river in Richmond, Ben met his wife. An ethereal barefoot creature, who'd known their Eco host since birth (her mother's organic farmstead abuts his parents' estate), Tara offered him a glass of elderflower champagne. And Ben realised that the future was Green. He took Tara's number and also the number of a young Eco buck who was setting up a Green Fund specialising in carbon off-setting, something about which Ben had never heard.

That was three years ago and now Ben and Tara fly the hemp flag higher than anyone they know. "Simply put, our grandfathers' battle was the Second World War; ours is Climate Change," says Ben. And the fund has surpassed all expectation. They have an office at the top of the Gherkin. Ben is uneasy about the number of transatlantic flights he takes for work, but he always offsets them – after all, he laughs, if he doesn't do it, who the hell will?

Tara's got her name down for an allotment but, to be honest, she is relieved the waiting list is still years long. In the meantime, the family makes do with their weekly organic veg box. She's also pioneered her set's move into James Jeans – she'd die without LA-based Seun Lim's organic denim! She teams them with something fair trade from People Tree (and yes, she was buying from them long before Sienna Miller).

When he isn't away on business, Ben, Tara and Uma make a point of leaving early on Friday in order to hit the A40 in their Toyota Prius before the traffic gets hideous. The family loves spending time at Tara's mother's Queen Anne farmhouse on her organic smallholding in Oxfordshire, where she's experimenting with clover as a means of returning nitrogen to the soil.

If Ben were to voice a wish in public – let's say at a fundraising luncheon at Highgrove – it might be that travelling by plane be banned. But his real wish is for a nice trad chunk of land not too far from London on which to run a hobby farm and experiment with rare breeds. Ben's wish would also most likely include trading in his half-house at the north end of Ladbroke Grove for something stucco in Phillimore Gardens. And if the fund keeps going the way it has, it might not be too long before Ben's wish comes true.

Meet Sleek Sloane

Rose is a yoga instructor, a model and a painter but her first love – apart from looking fabulous, which is actually more of an occupation – is hunting. She's passionate about it, always has been. Her 71-year-old mother still hunts, her grandmother hunted and her greatgrandmother hunted. When they're in the country, both Rose and her mother go out with the South Dorset.

Rose is 46. When was the last time she told anyone her real age? Longer ago than she cares to remember. People think she's 34 which is her intention, particularly with modelling in mind. She still does the odd designer show but these days makes most of her money from catalogues: she keeps quiet about those jobs!

As a yoga instructor, Rose specialises in one-on-one tuition in people's houses and also takes a couple of classes at a specialist centre in Notting Hill. But the yoga is not about making money; even without the modelling, Rose wouldn't need money, thanks to the good whack she gets each month from her ex-husband, an American whom she left on Wall Street. He's rich and generous and pays very good maintenance for her and 13-year-old Poppy, who has recently started boarding at Heathfield St Mary's (formerly St Mary's Wantage, Rose's own school).

Rose began taking an interest in "grooming" (she can't bear that word – it makes her feel like a horse!) when she moved to New York in the mid-1990s. She was in her early thirties then, beautiful and famous for being the muse of a French couturier. Her trademark look was Anglo-sloppy: vintage jeans, scuffed boots and trainers with the backs trodden down.

Her nails were munched to the quick and sometimes she went for two days without washing her hair. Hers was the "just-got-out-of-bed" look. Back in the UK she was considered breathtakingly sexy, but in New York this was not so: there she was viewed with some concern – was she dirty, poor or depressed? Perhaps all three. Once, when she arrived at a famous downtown restaurant wearing vintage Levis and a Biba top, the maître d' turned her away. Rose was horrified.

For almost a year after that she hated New York. And then suddenly she succumbed. She'd started getting spots on her chin – a trauma she'd never previously suffered – so on the advice of her (one) friend in the city, she booked in to see a dermatologist. He suggested that she consult a nutritionist. And he advised her to follow a macrobiotic diet and visit a facialist. Rose booked in, liked the results, and the rest was easy: she lost a stone, got her hair straightened, took up yoga, had her eyebrows waxed and then endured her first Brazilian – despite the towel between her teeth, her howls could still be heard three blocks away. Back in London for Christmas, Rose spent a blissful two weeks with absolutely everyone gushing about how fabulous she looked.

As soon as Poppy was born, Rose treated herself to a post-partum boob job (a secret between her and her surgeon) and her lifelong relationship with Sleek was confirmed. Her modelling work picked up and less than a year after Poppy's birth, Rose found herself on New York's Best Dressed lists, only now her signature look was "classic chic".

Back in London for good, Rose spent her first year putting together the coterie – all friends now! – whose task it is to keep her looking flawless. And she revels in looking flawless. Just the other day she wore a simple Prada column dress to the Ivy. Everyone else was in jeans and Rose stood out a million miles. It felt great!

Rose is generous when it comes to handing out names and numbers to her girlfriends – except of course the special numbers that she keeps to herself. Her colonic irrigationist, for example: there's something so personal about the state of one's colon. And the woman who does her chemical peels – there's no need to tell everyone absolutely everything, is there?

Meet Turbo Sloane

George, 34, spends half his time in New York, half in London and half in Dubai. But three halves don't make a whole! Actually they can when it comes to George – he crosses the International Date Line so frequently that as far as he's concerned there are nine days to the average week.

He set up Jet Set, Go three years ago. And now, with his partner James, he runs a fleet of 14 private jets. And helicopters, too. The move into choppers was a good one and it's now a core part of the business: Jet Set, for example, flew all the major stars in for the UK festivals last year. Agents and managers like the company; it's geared up to handle the most sensitive client requirements and that's why Jet Set is on speed-dial for a surprisingly broad sector of the population: rock stars, footballers, department-store owners, oligarchs and plutocrats. The one thing uniting this tribe is money and because of the quantities involved, most of George's clients are household names.

So what gave George the idea for Jet Set? First and foremost – and in fact, second and third – the urge to make money. He decided long ago that he was not going to fade away like his father had – or worse still, become notorious the way co-founder James's father had. The poor guy, a former officer, was caught embezzling money and, because he was Lord Justice of the County, he had made the front page of the newspapers. And all because he was having trouble – after the Lloyds debacle – putting four children through school.

Plus, George found it upsetting that so much serious cash had descended – Russian, Euro, Yank, Middle Eastern – on Sloane London. Who were these people who were buying up the stucco squares of Chelsea? Buying up the football clubs? Creating this new London awash with Cristal, fabulous restaurants and helipads? And why wasn't George getting a slice?

So, six years ago, he and James leased four nine-seater Falcon jets. George was working in the music industry at the time and knew (oh how he knew!) the trouble musicians were having finding a company which understood the artistic temperament as well as the level of service demanded by the very rich.

Now George eats, thinks and drinks Jet Set. He has done since its inception. When he first started out, he used to entertain friends with stories of his clients: the Russian oligarch – yes, him! – who booked a jet from Tokyo to London. For the flight he requested two female masseuses plus, of course, the usual Dom Perignon and a selection of sashimi from Nobu, London. Hello? You're in Tokyo! No, he wouldn't be moved: the sashimi must be from Nobu, London. And so, a couple of hours into the flight, he'd had the sashimi and was now drinking Dom Perignon whilst being massaged somewhere over Iran. And then the whole thing fell apart when he made some excessive demands of the masseuses. It was known as wanting a "happy ending", George learned later when he talked to a friend at Quintessentially. But George hadn't known that then. The girls spent the remainder of the journey locked in the cockpit while the Russian passed out on the massage table. Unfortunately, George was unaware that the new girlfriend of one of his friends worked for a UK tabloid; that weekend the story surfaced in three Sunday papers.

Discretion is everything now and George won't even tell his mother about his clients. Thanks to Jet Set, he is one of the best-connected men in London, and a regular on all the Best Dressed lists; he's also currently single. It's not that he doesn't have girlfriends, just that his life doesn't really allow for having a family. That's not to say there's any shortage of contenders willing to step up to the breach. The truth is that a woman – now, anyway – would have to play second fiddle to Jet Set, and, as George has discovered, it's hard to find a modern woman who will put up with that.

Meet Bongo Sloane

If Antonia Gunton was completely honest she wasn't happy throughout the 23 years of her marriage to Charles. Obviously she adored having children. But the marriage? She wasn't happy. Not because of Lloyds, or the affairs, or even the rudimentary love-making. In fact it wasn't even Charles who made her so unhappy. It was herself. Antonia was not happy because she was not in touch with her authentic self.

She can laugh now when she recalls that first diagnostic session with Sarah Peel. She hadn't seen Sarah since school, but then she bumped into her at the Hurlingham Club and Sarah told her she was now fully trained in feng shui. Feng what? Antonia had asked, imagining some kind of kung fu-style attack.

The next thing she knew, Sarah had arrived at Rostrevor Road, and was counselling her on the clash between fire and water created by her kitchen appliances. Antonia giggled when Sarah said that this was presenting " major problems" in her life. But then, standing in their hallway, Sarah claimed that she could see money flowing straight out of the front door: now that struck a chord. Charles had lost an awful lot of their money in Lloyds, and it was looking likely that they might not be able to keep Louisa at school.

Within 24 hours Antonia had installed a three-legged toad facing the door which, Sarah said, "suggested money coming in rather than going out". A week later she received a letter. Great Aunt Lavinia had died, naming Antonia the main beneficiary of her will. The bequest included her house, Willow Cottage, a paddock and stabling for six horses. Antonia caught her breath and began to take feng shui seriously.

At the time of Sarah's visit, Antonia and Charles had just celebrated their 23rd wedding anniversary. The children were off doing their own thing – well, all of them except Louisa, who'd been a mistake and consequently was still at school – and Charles was approaching retirement. It had never occurred to Antonia to put herself first (the idea was excruciating), but she was beginning to see that doing so might be the way out of the rut she was in.

Over the next few months Antonia worked on the house and – she now realises – herself. She re-aligned the dining room and she hung muslin, bamboo hoops and crystals above the bed to soften the atmosphere. Sarah suggested Antonia should see "a wonderful man I know" who specialised in something called reiki. Six weeks and £600 later and Antonia felt she was really getting somewhere. She felt lighter.

Charles failed to notice. Anything. He just resented their bedroom smelling like a "ruddy brothel" with flowers everywhere. It was the flowers that helped Antonia make up her mind: freshly cut blooms – regardless of type – never survived more than two days in their bedroom. Sarah agreed. Antonia and Charles were simply on different journeys.

Divorce. The bombshell. It was terrible. Charles veered between bemused sympathy for his deranged wife, shock, and fury. His interpretation was simple: she'd gone mad. He began to poke among her herbal supplements to establish that she wasn't being drugged.

But it was all worth it. The old Antonia wouldn't recognise her life today. Her new partner, Anzan ("Quiet Mountain"), whom she met at an Ayurvedic consultation, is a decade younger than her. But the real change has been Willow Cottage. The house proved to be the means by which Antonia could finally and resolutely Obliterate Suffering With Bliss. Together, she and Anzan converted the stable block into a Yoga Retreat offering weekend breaks focusing on healing and meditation.

At 58, Antonia feels infinitely younger than that stiff young woman who, 36 years ago, shopped at Peter Jones, cooked shepherd's pie, wore navy tights and married Charles. There's no comparison. Thanks to yoga she's achieved things with Anzan she would previously have argued were physiologically impossible – not to say unnecessary. That's rebirth for you!

And finally, meet Sloane Off The Rails

Sarah Jane (SJ): 26; Benenden; Marlborough (for A levels – and to meet a few boys); St Andrews (English 2:1) and now Condé Nast where she's features editor on one of their magazines – one of the youngest ever – and is doing glitteringly well. She was recently headhunted by a "family" newspaper but, to the immense relief of her parents, she chose to stay in Hanover Square – neither relished the idea of a hard-boiled hack for a daughter. No, Condé Nast suits her just fine.

With her glossy hair and coltish elegance, SJ has never been short of admirers. In fact her parents – Sylvia in particular – had nursed high hopes she'd marry a particular Marquis she'd met at St Andrews. Things had been going so well that SJ had brought him down to Hampshire prompting Sylvia to have the curtains in the drawing-room cleaned (for the first time in a decade!) and also get the girls in from the village to give The Grange a going-over. Jonathan had retreated to the conservatory, muttering about what he called the "Royal Visit". That weekend, while Jonathan stood on the terrace with the boy, she gave SJ a swift refresher on "The Rules", particularly the importance of not sleeping with him too soon.

"Mummy," SJ groaned. "We're only friends." But Sylvia could tell. When she and Jonathan were alone, she asked if he thought the boy's parents would share the bill for the wedding.

Time went by. Sylvia heard his name mentioned now and then, even after SJ left St Andrews and began sharing a flat in Putney. Then about 18 months ago, during a telephone conversation, SJ had said: "Mummy, I've started doing the Alpha Course."

"Oh, really darling?" Sylvia asked vaguely.

"It's about forging a closer relationship with Jesus," SJ said. "Discovering why we're here."

"Sounds lovely, darling," her mother replied. Religion was something Sylvia approved of.

And then her daughter came home breathless with excitement one Saturday lunchtime and kept going on and on about a weekend she'd spent – somewhere outside Morecambe – on her knees, speaking in tongues, with tears rolling down her cheeks. "Mummy, I felt the Holy Spirit enter me."

Sylvia was not sure how to take this: it seemed that her beautiful daughter had not only found God but dropped everything else.

"She'll grow out of it!" Jonathan had said.

Eighteen months later and SJ was showing no signs of growing out of it. If anything, she was even more involved in the whole thing: she was at HTB (Holy Trinity Brompton) most nights of the week handing out leaflets, running groups and helping in the kitchen.

Sylvia watched her dream of SJ becoming a Marchioness begin to recede. Instead SJ was wasting her best years inside some fusty church as part of the Born-Again God Squad.

"Oh, Mummy, it's not like that! You should come. I think you'd love it."

And so Sylvia had come down on the train and had taken a taxi from Waterloo to the church in Knightsbridge. It had been crowded, though the people weren't as socially drab as she'd feared. But she just couldn't bear to see them all sitting in groups, breathlessly discussing their experiences with Jesus Christ. All that touchy-feely stuff. It was just too enthusiastic. Sylvia knew that prayer was like an account: you paid in, privately, and only God knew your balance. A more traditional kind of God and Church was something to be visited once a fortnight. Sylvia knew what to do: it was time to withdraw from her account.

"Dear God," she prayed that night, "please make SJ leave that dreadful church, and find her way back to the Marquis."

Extracted from 'Cooler, Faster, More Expensive: The Return of the Sloane Ranger', by Peter York and Olivia Stewart-Liberty, published by Atlantic Books at £19.99. To order your copy at a special price, including free postage, call Independent Books Direct on 08700 798897