Backstairs Billy (16 page)
Authors: Tom Quinn
Another friend who knew Billy for the last few years of his life recalled a quieter, more reflective character.
I was in my local pub one night when this guy in a bright yellow scarf and luminous green corduroy trousers sat down next to me. At first I was a bit wary. I thought, oh no, here comes the resident drunk who bores everyone to death, but within a few minutes I found myself opening up to him. He was a very likeable character. A natural talker and listener. Although I’m hopeless at talking to people I don’t know well I found it very difficult
not
to talk to him.
Billy and his new friend became rather drunk and Billy invited him back to his flat where they carried on drinking.
It was when we got back to his flat – along with three other blokes from the pub – that I realised who he was. One of the other guys in our little party said, ‘That’s William Tallon, you know.’ I told him the name didn’t ring a bell at all. The other guy said, ‘Worked for the Queen Mother for fifty years.’ Anyway we had a great party. He invited me back regularly after that and I felt a great void in my life after he died, even though I never felt I knew him well. The point is you never felt you had to work hard to keep the conversation going. Billy just swept you along.
Other friends remember Billy’s characteristic drawl.
‘He still had a bit of his Coventry accent,’ recalled one, ‘but it was overlaid with a sort of nonchalant aristocratic twang.’
He would say about an acquaintance, ‘Don’t listen to a word he says. I know exactly what sort of creature he is. And do you know why? Well,
I will tell you. He was nothing before he met me. Absolutely nothing. But after a year or two with me he had polish. He was, you might say, semi divine,’ and the word ‘divine’ would be long and drawn out; it was as if the word had about twenty-six letters in it! While he said it he would roll his eyes and pretend to flick back the hair on either side of his head. If he really wanted to emphasise the point he would finish a sentence, throw back his head, turn and stalk off. But he would be back in a second and ask, ‘What did you think of that little performance?’
Another of his wonderfully entertaining little ploys was to shout across the room for silence and then he would announce that he was going to show us how to dance a few steps of flamenco, or an old-fashioned waltz. He would then cavort across the room to the huge delight of his audience. He was at these times completely uninhibited.
Another friend recalled how Billy’s manner would change if someone good-looking came along and he went into what his friends called ‘chat-up mode’.
We were waiting in his flat for the plumber to arrive and when he did he was discovered to be rather good-looking so immediately Billy was on the alert. He became very attentive and interested in the young man. He asked him where he was from. The young man said, ‘From Hornchurch.’ Billy immediately responded by saying ‘Oh, Hornchurch,’ with the sort of emphasis that made you think he had known Hornchurch all his life. The young man replied eagerly, ‘Do you know it?’ and Billy said, ‘Good heavens. Of course not.’ But he smiled and gave the young man a glass of champagne anyway.
Many of Billy’s friends also noted his tendency to exaggerate wildly for effect. At one party given at Gate Lodge he told a guest that London was a bore now that he’d ‘had everyone’. He then added, ‘Well, anyone worth having, that is.’
He was also subject to sudden enthusiasms. If a party was going well he would sometimes ring a friend and persuade whoever it was to invite everyone at Gate Lodge – perhaps as many as twenty people – over to the friend’s house. Once the person on the other end of the line had agreed, Billy would immediately call for half a dozen taxis and set off for Chiswick or Hampstead or wherever. Billy would lead the way out of Gate Lodge into the Mall with his arm held aloft; very much, as one friend put it, ‘like a Japanese tourist group leader’.
On one occasion he told his friends they were all going to a party in Barnes. He organised the taxis and in great excitement the party set off. It was only as they crossed Hammersmith Bridge that Billy realised he should have told the taxi drivers to go to Balham. But, delighted at his mistake, he made a huge joke of it and simply told the taxi driver to turn round and head in another direction.
Billy often pulled the same trick in retirement in Kennington. He would invite half a dozen people home to his flat from the local pub and then ring a friend – sometimes a rather grand theatrical friend – and try to get an invitation for his new friends to visit then and there. It was usually the case that the people sitting round expectantly really were new friends – Billy had never set eyes on them before that evening. He would claim on the phone
that they were all old friends. ‘He was quite wild about that kind of thing,’ recalled a regular at his local pub, the Dog House. ‘He would get caught up in the moment – a moment made more reckless by a great deal of alcohol!’
As he grew older he became wilder in his habits and conversation but also less concerned about his appearance. He would dress up carefully in his last years at Clarence House but if he spilled food or more usually wine down his front he would make only perfunctory efforts to get rid of the stains.
‘His beautiful suit was often covered in what looked like food and wine stains,’ recalled a fellow servant. ‘I once went into his office and found him using a black biro to try to blot out a white stain on his trousers. He wasn’t in the least embarrassed that I’d seen him.’
Another servant explained that Billy had a rather unorthodox technique for keeping his hair looking youthful.
‘He hated going grey when it first started to happen but was very lazy about getting it professionally dyed so he would brush dark brown boot polish through it just to hide the grey streaks. It actually worked very well!’
And Billy had other eccentric habits. He went through a period, for example, when he was convinced someone was tampering with the royal collection of Fabergé eggs. He became obsessive about checking them, a habit that was soon extended to the royal pictures, the various display cabinets and their contents, even the furniture.
‘He admitted he had a bit of a problem,’ recalled a fellow servant.
He thought it was because he was going through an anxious period, which might well have been true. But, on the other hand he was always at the centre of gossip, backbiting and intrigue so you’d have thought that he’d have been used to it. I mentioned to another servant that I thought Billy was a bit over-stressed and it was showing itself in his obsession with checking all these things, but she just said, ‘It’s nothing to do with that. He’s just bloody mad!’
Billy was always the centre of a swirling mass of stories, many of which bore very little relation to reality. Several of his friends testify to his enjoyment of the stories that were told about him and he would sometimes say, in response to a question about a particular story, ‘Well, I don’t remember that at all but I’m sure it must be true. It’s exactly what I would have done under the circumstances. It’s completely in character.’
If the story added to Billy’s sense of his importance in the royal household he would glow and he would rarely contradict something that added to the Backstairs Billy legend.
B
OTH THE QUEEN
Mother and her most devoted servant became locked into a life of comfortable and comforting routine, but it was a routine that would ultimately have disastrous consequences for Billy. Many people find that retirement is difficult because they have lost the structure that routine provides. But this problem was particularly acute
for Billy because his work routine filled his days, his evenings and many of his weekends.
Billy gave her flowers on her birthday but it was a token gesture as she received gifts each year from all over the world. But it was these little rituals – at lunch and breakfast on birthdays and other special occasions – that bound them together. No one knows what he whispered to her but he made a point of whispering even when it was not strictly necessary – it was a way of indicating to others that he had special privileges. She had occasionally complained that Billy did this too often, but increasingly as she grew older she seemed to enjoy the intimacy it implied. Billy’s adoration was not lost on her.
F
ORMER SERVANTS, LADIES
in waiting, equerries and other officials all seem to agree that the death of Reg Wilcox in 2000 was in some ways far more of a blow to Billy than the death of the Queen Mother. Though his night-time forays to Soho led to numerous casual liaisons, Billy’s relationship with Reg was based on something more enduring. One former servant said they were like an old-fashioned royal couple themselves.
When others were around they were curiously formal with each other and both thought it was silly and rather suburban to worry about sexual fidelity. Reg knew Billy would never leave him despite the endless affairs. How could he? A casual pick-up would never understand the life of a royal servant and would never want a permanent relationship with a man who was tied not just to the Queen Mother but also to the very edifice of bricks and mortar in which she lived.
Reg was always happy to be Billy’s deputy since their work differed very little in essentials from day to day and Billy was always careful not to pull rank on his partner. Noel Kelly remembered: ‘They were remarkably skilful at working together because although everyone knew they were a couple they behaved towards each other in the corridors of Clarence House with a kind of seriousness that warned you not to treat either of them lightly. Billy was fiercely protective of Reg and Reg was careful to defer to Billy but they worked together in a highly efficient way with Reg called upon only occasionally to smooth Billy’s feathers.’
Noel Kelly recalled coming across the two men by chance in Clarence House. Billy was clearly very upset by something and Reg had his hand on Billy’s forearm and was speaking calmly but very intently to him. They were so intent on each other that they didn’t notice they had been spotted and in the time before they registered Kelly’s presence he saw Billy’s face go from almost black with rage to calm and almost sunny. It was an impressive performance. ‘I’ve no idea what he said but whatever it was, it was precisely targeted and absolutely did the trick.’
The two men travelled regularly with the Queen Mother well into her eighties. Many of these trips were private affairs, especially to the Queen Mother’s friends in France. Reg tended to organise while Billy was, as his friends often put it, front of house.
A well-known story recounts how the Queen Mother went to stay with a very grand friend in the south of France. Soon after she arrived she was shown to her room by her host. When the host opened the wardrobe, he was astonished to see that all the Queen Mother’s things had already been carefully hung and laid out by Reg. On reaching the house he had immediately discovered who was responsible for the various practical arrangements and while the Queen Mother was still enjoying tea in the drawing room Reg had got to work. The Queen Mother apparently said to her astonished host, ‘You see, I am here already.’
Holidays became much more difficult for the Queen Mother as she entered her nineties and in a curious parallel Reg and Billy stopped enjoying their occasional breaks together at around the same time. These had always been rather half-hearted affairs because the two men always felt slightly at a loss outside their working environment. It is easy to imagine that working six and a half, sometimes seven days a week and often long into the evening did not leave much time to develop outside interests beyond socialising and party going.
Additionally, as time went by Reg and Billy’s lives became increasingly centred on Billy’s little palace in the Mall and to a lesser extent on Reg’s flat in Kennington where, occasionally at weekends, the couple did escape from Clarence House to tend
their roses and sit out in the sun. The flat was actually Reg’s but it was to provide a refuge – if sometimes an unhappy one – for Billy when his world finally collapsed.
W
ITH RED-COATED SOLDIERS
always guarding the gates next to Billy’s Gate Lodge, it was one of his great pleasures to slip out when there were plenty of tourists about. He loved the fact that tourists immediately assumed he was a person of importance in the royal household, which of course he was. The cameras would start snapping in a frenzy when he appeared at his door and paused – deliberately and rather theatrically – before heading through the gate into the grounds of Clarence House or out and along the Mall. Billy would adopt an air of royal mystery before disappearing into the crowd.
Basia Briggs tells a marvellous story about leaving a garden party at Buckingham Palace and then walking along the Mall to Clarence House to see Billy and show him her hat. Soon afterwards she left Clarence House and, accompanied by Billy, waited to cross the Mall, which happened at that time to be very busy.
Replete in his white tie and tails William got fed up waiting so he simply walked into the middle of the road with the traffic thundering all around him and held up his hand. The traffic came almost instantly to a standstill and I was able to cross. That was the sort of presence he had. He was convinced they would stop and so they did!
Such extravagant gestures did not always work, however. Billy loved to tell the story of how, crossing the Mall one day on his own, he once again held up his hand to stop the traffic. A Royal Parks lorry happened to have stopped by the kerb and the driver shouted through the window, ‘Off to the fuckin’ ball, are we, Cinderella?’ Billy was about to reply when he noticed that a policeman had also heard the driver. Billy spoke to the policeman who cautioned the driver for using offensive language. Billy was delighted.
L
IKE BILLY, REG
developed an interest in art (when he died it was discovered that he owned a number of valuable pictures) but he was far less voluble about it and in many ways he was rather a mystery. ‘What on earth has he got to be so cheerful about?’ asked one visitor to Clarence House when they heard Reg whistling and then singing one morning. But being cheerful was definitely Reg’s trademark.
It is said that a rather grand equerry once reprimanded Reg in a high-handed way for singing and told him to keep quiet. A day or two later the equerry was astonished to receive a short letter from the Queen Mother telling him that Reg was permitted to sing and whistle whenever he chose and that the equerry should, though she did not say it in so many words, mind his own business. Moreover, Reg, despite his good nature, was not in any way a weak man or easily cowed. When the need arose he stood up for what he thought was right.
After a party at Balmoral, a group of drunken, rowdy guests who were all equerries or advisers began running along the corridors squirting soda siphons at each other. The Queen Mother was disturbed by the ruckus and commented that it was rather like being in the Blitz again. But Reg was indignant that her sleep had been disturbed and he informed the senior equerry that his behaviour would be reported to the Queen Mother’s lady in waiting. The equerry was so surprised to be reprimanded in this way that he became red-faced and instantly stammered out his apologies, which, typically, Reg accepted with a good grace. Too kind to take it any further, Reg allowed the incident to be quietly forgotten.
A
CCORDING TO BILLY
, as the Queen Mother approached her centenary her mind began to fail. She may have looked the same to the public on her occasional appearances but in private she increasingly forgot things and became horribly muddled; she was also more prone to irritation, even where Billy was concerned.
It was the beginning of a decline that would lead eventually to Billy being kept completely apart from her during the last few months of her life. When she could no longer insist that Billy should continue to be her close companion – it is said she barely knew who or where she was during the last months of her life – the senior advisers made sure all the doors were locked against her former favourite.
As she entered her final decade her old habit of steeliness also became intensified. ‘She had a tendency to look extremely firm – or steely – rather than to say anything. I don’t think she liked directly reprimanding anyone,’ recalled one of Billy’s friends, ‘but she sometimes took offence if Billy offered her his arm on public occasions. This had little to do with her feeling he was only a servant and therefore it was rather a presumptuous thing to do. It had far more to do with her wanting to seem fit enough to stand without aid even in extreme old age. She hated to seem weak when the cameras were rolling and the public were cheering.’
When the Queen Mother came out of Clarence House each year to greet the crowds on her birthday, Billy would often make every effort to get as close to her as possible. He would try to offer support only when she looked as if she was about to topple over. Inevitably he would occasionally misjudge things. Later he would get a stern look and she would say, ‘William, I am not entirely incapable.’
William took this sort of mild rebuke in his stride, but he had a reputation for getting his revenge in subtle but highly effective ways with anyone else who crossed him.
If there happened to be a dispute with an equerry about some aspect of protocol, Billy would begin by discussing the issue in an oblique way with the Queen Mother. Once she had come round to Billy’s view he would set off to see the relevant adviser, and explain that the Queen Mother wanted things in a certain way. It had nothing to do with Billy, of course; he was simply the messenger. And that would usually be the end of the argument.
But the Queen Mother would not live forever and Billy seems to have failed completely to realise that his high-handed behaviour would come back to haunt him. In the Queen Mother’s last years he would have been wise to make fewer enemies and more friends. As it was, he did neither and his enemies were certainly plotting against him for at least a decade before she died. ‘I think some of them even stayed on longer than they had originally planned just to see Billy get his comeuppance,’ recalled one friend.
Billy’s technique of using the Queen Mother’s supposed views on a particular matter to get his way was also adopted by Reg and whenever a disagreement arose the staff knew it would not be long before Billy or Reg would be heard saying, ‘Her Majesty prefers it that way.’
One servant recalled that ‘half the time they were making it up and Her Majesty never got to hear about proposed changes to procedures. Reg and Billy would simply give the impression that the Queen Mother had been consulted on the proposals and had vetoed them.’
In 1998 Reg became seriously ill with leukaemia. The prognosis for childhood leukaemia is now very good but for those afflicted by the disease in middle age – Reg was just sixty-four – the prospects were, and still are, poor. Rumours circulated at the time that he was suffering from HIV or even full-blown AIDS and the situation was made worse when, already weakened by the disease that was eventually to kill him, Reg contracted a virus. But he was a tough character and seemed to have made a full recovery from both his leukaemia and his viral infection as the Queen Mother’s
one hundredth birthday approached. In fact he had been seriously weakened by his illnesses and only strength of will kept him going. He was determined, as Billy himself admitted tearfully in later years, to live until the Queen Mother reached her centenary.