Forty-seven years and 19,500 parties after Betty Kenward began writing Jennifer’s Diary in Harpers & Queen, she has handed it over to Sue Crewe, who admits to loving society gossip but, in the column’s tradition, will keep it to herself. She talks to CAROLINE PHILLIPS

SUE Crewe, unattached and the former shopping editor of Harpers & Queen, is taking over from Betty Kenward as ‘Jennifer’ of Jennifer’s Diary in the same magazine. Mrs Kenward, 84 and always ready with a withering semi-colon, has had 47 thrilling years of marvellous chronicling of charming partygoers, dear dear friends, looking radiant and living in a world of silk organza. It is said that the redoubtable Kenward went to 19,500 parties during her tenure and every Royal Wedding since 1944 except that of Princess Margaret. (A palatial oversight.) It was she who covered two consecutive days at the Royal Windsor Horse Show interrupted by a dinner party in Venezuela by Concorde. And there was that incident on the operating table when, minutes before the surgeon drew his knife, she insisted on reading her galley proofs.

As Crewe and I enjoyed a pre-luncheon drink (Nescafe), we looked out at the delightful grounds on the other side of the house which included no ornamental lakes but a few parking meters. Her W11 sitting-room is decorated in shabby Good Taste with a bit of exotic bohemia and brown wrapping paper on the walls. Henrietta, a charming old Kensington High School friend of mine, was staying there, between houses. Crewe also has a ‘tummy-turningly beautiful’ little grey rented cottage in Cumbria.

The relations-in-oil of her first husband, author and foodie Quentin Crewe, glower down from the wall. ‘They’re called the Spoonbills. That’s the Cavendishes’ generic name for other people’s gloomy relations,’ laughs Crewe, 41, nee Cavendish, and granddaughter of the Eighth Duke of Devonshire and second cousin to the present incumbent of Chatsworth. She says things like ‘oh heahverns’, ‘goooodness’ and ‘oh golleh’.

The regal Kenward would have presented the most glorious sight in black pleated dress, court shoes, immaculate coiffure neatly pinned with a large velvet bow and three-strand pearl choker. ‘Do I look all right? I’m very insecure,’ says Crewe, who is resplendent in unstructured gold Nicole Farhi cardigan, flowing burnished almond T-shirt and acorn-kernel trousers plus drop gold earrings.

If one works for H&Q, she reckons, golly, it’s rude not to be brushed and combed. ‘I’m naturally untidy. Some children are born with their nappies round their left ear . . . and I was. The Cavendishes are famously badly dressed. People go into print talking about their awful clothes.’ Her ‘wonderful cleavage’, on which H&Q editor Vicki Woods has gone into print, is not on show. But she is pretty, with lovely eyes, although she thinks she is ordinary. ‘In the first year, I expect I’ll go to absolutely everything I’m invited to. With any luck, I’ll lose a lot of weight. I used to be thin and nervous. Now I’m just nervous.’

She was chosen from 17 applicants for the job. She was approached; it didn’t occur to her to apply. She will take up her post on 5 August, editing her first diary for the December issue.

So how does she feel about taking over from the legendary Kenward? ‘A mixture of excitement, ebullience and trepidation.’ The indomitable Kenward got up at 6am and went to bed at 2am daily. And Crewe? ‘I’m hopeless in the morning. I can’t do anything useful until 11.’ She reckons it a hard act of stamina to follow. ‘She was like Mrs Thatcher.’

But, above all, she feels tickled. ‘I was so proud of myself for getting a career – and now a job!’ She was freelance before. ‘It’s the first time I’ve been employed since I was 19. It’s amazing! I get a pension!’ In addition, and this she finds the astonishing thing, she is going to have a secretary. She won’t have Kenward’s chauffeur-driven Mercedes or maid – she drives a four-year-old Citroen.

It all reminds her rather of that benchmark seven years ago when she got her first mortgage. ‘I thought it was such a grown-up thing to have. I wound down my window by some unknown passerby in Kensington High Street and said, ‘I’ve got a mortgage’.’

Kenward never committed the social faux pas of taking a pencil or notebook to a party – when one was a guest, one behaved like a guest, holding only sherry in one’s perfectly formed hand. ‘I think I’m going to do a lot of muttering into a small tape recorder. I’m very bad at remembering people’s names,’ says Crewe, endearingly.

In front of people? ‘Oh yes. I’m going to say, ‘I’ve got concussion, could you tell me your name?’ ‘ She laughs. ‘The more nervous I get, the more the memory completely evaporates, don’t you find?’

And will Crewe be writing nice things? ‘I see no point in being gratuitously unpleasant. I think it’s much stronger to be enthusiastic. It’s so easy to knock people,’ says Crewe. So she won’t change the style? ‘I’m not saying. I want it to be a lovely surprise when it comes out!’ She giggles.

She grew up at Holker Hall in Cumbria and went to St Marys, Wantage, before having a couple of marriages (the second to now chairman of TV-am news Nigel Ryan) and a couple of children (Nathaniel and Charity), and doing a variety of jobs which included selling sofa covers to the Army and microlights to Turkey.

She also studied dairy (not diary) management at agricultural college. ‘I got a cup for trying hard. But it was awful when I forgot to test the brakes on this bloody great tractor and, of course, we went sailing into the side of a barn.’

She’s a special person, deliciously nice. She’s funny, imaginative and kindly yet assertive. One imagines her easily wounded. She’s straightforward and the remark attributed to her (‘I know I’m getting old because all my friends who were marquesses have become dukes’) was actually said by a friend of hers, tongue firmly in chic.

She’s unsure of herself. ‘I have a very low opinion of myself. Don’t we all? I think English women particularly are not encouraged to look at their talents and gifts. And I was one of the last of a generation of girls not to be educated or trained.’

She is currently romantically uninvolved. And what of her marriages to famous men? ‘It’s a huge privilege to be married to interesting people who achieve a great deal in their lives. It wasn’t only a rare delight, it also made up for my paucity of education. It was 50 times more instructive than going to university.’

And did she prefer one marriage to the other? Quentin Crewe or Nigel Ryan? She snorts with laughter. ‘Both of them told me only to say ‘f*** off’ when you’re asked an impossible question and then nobody prints it. But nowadays they do.’ She hoots again. ‘Of course not is the real answer.’ She says she doesn’t know why either of the relationships broke up. ‘I really don’t know. I think about it a lot. But I don’t think there are any absolutes in love, marriage or divorce. No two-sentence answers to those sort of questions.’

But back to the job. She doesn’t think ‘social connections are the most important thing for the diarist. Connections are like multiple joints that plumbers use. They are no use unless you are a good plumber and you have the pipes’. She considers herself a good plumber, so presumably the parties must be the pipes.

So is she a great party gel? ‘I don’t think the person taking over the diary necessarily has to be a society person or party person. I’m not a mad partygoer.’

She’s interested in the sports or politics, or mating rituals that generates parties. One wonders if she’ll be writing about such Important Sociological Undercurrents. ‘Not necessarily. But I will be aware of them.’ Does she love gossip? ‘Love it.’ And will she write about her friends? ‘Yes.’ She has a huge range of acquaintances and a small group of intimates.

Is Crewe as discreet as her predecessor? ‘I have old-fashioned notions of integrity. And I’m also old enough not to be bullied or coerced.’ So she won’t reveal even the teeniest gaff? ‘Certainly not. I’m a repository for gossip, not a conduit!’

She doesn’t think there’s something a touch anachronistic about writing a compendium of high society’s race meetings and garden parties. ‘High society living it up is an endangered species,’ she smiles. No one works harder than the aristocracy.