Not in Front of the Corgis (9 page)

The Women of the Bedchamber are sometimes referred to within the Household as ‘
Handbag-holders
-in-chief’ because they ensure that The Queen has any of the essentials any other woman might require during the engagements on which they
accompany
her.

When The Queen is planning a visit, either in the United Kingdom or abroad, a small team of three – private secretary, or his representative, protection
officer and Lady-in-Waiting – carry out a
reconnaissance
visit some months in advance. This ‘recce’ is to go over the proposed programme stopwatch in hand, timing each segment and finding out what is suitable to be presented to Her Majesty.

If a meal is planned, the Lady-in-Waiting agrees the menu with the hosts, stipulating that shellfish must not be served, in case of stomach upsets, and no heavy red meat. Every one of the Ladies has a list of answers to the questions they know they will be asked, with the number one, and most delicate being ‘What do we do if Her Majesty wants to go to the loo?’ This is the one they always get asked and the answer is always the same. A ‘retiring’ room should be set aside for the exclusive use of The Queen and the Lady-in-Waiting will indicate if and when it is required.

On one occasion, Her Majesty was due to visit a rugby international to be played at Headquarters, Twickenham, and the then secretary of the Rugby Football Union was the host. When the inevitable query arose, he showed the Lady-in-Waiting the proposed retiring room just off the main grandstand. It was then decided to have a rehearsal or ‘dry run’ to see if everything worked. Unfortunately, the noise of the cistern could be heard clearly from the nearest seats and the officials were anxious not to cause any embarrassment. So engineers were summoned and the offending water was drained and replaced with straw, which proved to be silent. As it happened, the retiring room was not required after all, but an
enterprising
England player decided to ensure his place in sporting history by christening the loo himself,
long after everyone else had left. His name has never been revealed.

The Royal Family has its own attitude to
addressing
staff. Police officers (of whatever rank), Pages (with the exception of Her Majesty’s personal Page)
chauffeurs
and older servants are called by their surname. Footmen and valets are known by their Christian name. One young footman, who mistakenly thought this was an invitation to friendliness, replied to one of The Queen’s children using his Christian name. By the time the Royal had recovered from the shock, the footman had been removed from royal service and was never heard of again.

Thirty-two porters and non-domestic cleaners are employed at Buckingham Palace, whose duties include moving furniture – and items from the Royal Collection that are valuable but too heavy for one of the footmen or maids to handle. They also help prepare the State Apartments for official functions. It was a team of these porters who manhandled the sections of the giant dining table into the State Ballroom for the dinner party that the Prince of Wales gave on the evening of the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. And they then had to dismantle it the following morning.

Once a year the porters assemble furniture and works of art in Frogmore House, in the grounds of Windsor Castle. The house is no longer used as a royal residence, but the Duke of Edinburgh gives informal dinner parties in its delightful surroundings when the house takes on the splendour of its past history. Frogmore has been open to the public for a specified
number of days each year since 1990, so the property has to be maintained in an excellent state of repair.

There is still one department within the Royal Household that is a throwback to previous reigns. It is part of the Lord Chamberlain’s Office and is run by someone with the title of State Invitations Assistant. Based in an office in St James’s Palace, a small team of nine ladies who go by the quaint description of ‘Temporary Lady Clerks’ are responsible for
writing
in longhand over 40,000 invitations a year. These ‘Temps’, some of whom have been doing the job for over twenty-five years, are the most discreet of women and very few people even know of their existence. Throughout the year they sit and write out the invitations to the four Garden Parties – they are actually called Afternoon Parties – The Queen gives every year: three at Buckingham Palace and one at the Palace of Holyrood House in Edinburgh. The ladies all use fountain pens; they wouldn’t dream of using a ballpoint and the invitations are always addressed to the lady of the house, never the husband. This is because the Garden Parties have replaced the old-style Coming Out Balls at which their mothers presented highborn debutantes to the Sovereign. These days, husbands, or partners may accompany their spouse and also a daughter aged eighteen is welcome, but not a son. This is not an occasion for sons, but primarily for daughters.

The staff (they hate that word) in the Garden Party Office could quite easily make considerable sums of money if they were corruptible, as many women (and their husbands) would gladly pay whatever it cost to
obtain an invitation to Buckingham Palace. But the assistant and his team have never been tempted. And if anyone even offered a bribe, his or her name would immediately appear on the ‘Black List’ and they would never be invited. The ‘Black List’ is a
sinister-sounding
record of those who have applied to be invited (that’s a definite no-no and a guaranteed way to ensure you never are invited) and also it contains letters, some anonymous, suggesting that so-and-so is not the person he or she claims to be and that their title is bogus or their decorations are false. Some of the letters are malicious in the extreme and obviously prompted by jealousy. But every one has to be
investigated
. The State Invitations Assistant and the ‘Temps’ are models of propriety at all times. And for this the ‘Temps’ earn less than £20,000 a year, nearly £5,000 below what is said to be the average income in the United Kingdom.

Because the Royal Household is now so large, it spreads to other buildings such as St James’s Palace where the Royal Collection has its headquarters. This is also where the Chancery is located; these are the people who organise the Investitures and make sure every decoration is properly awarded. The Yeomen of the Guard are also housed in St James’s Palace, with their ancient titles of Yeoman Bed Goer and Yeoman Bed Hanger. Their Captain is a political appointment, usually a Deputy Chief Whip in the House of Lords, who, no doubt, is relieved that he will not suffer the fate of one of his illustrious predecessors, Sir Walter Raleigh, who was taken to the Tower of London and executed.

The Royal Archives and Library are situated inside Windsor Castle and this is also the home to the Military Knights of Windsor, former officers who live in attractive houses alongside King Henry VIII’s Gate, the main entrance to the castle. The Knights attend morning service in St George’s Chapel and they are always on duty at the annual Garter Ceremony. One bone of contention among former officers, of a certain gender, is that there are no female Military Knights, and according to the present contingent, there never will be.

The whole business of sex discrimination and race in the Royal Household has been raised many times. Even Prince Charles has been heard to claim there are far too few black employees or anyone from ethnic minorities.

No one would claim the Royal Household is perfect and even The Queen has been criticised for not appointing a personal attendant from an ethnic minority. Of course, she does have two permanent Ghurkha officers at Court, but non-white faces are few and far between.

Those who run the organisation say the reason is that very few ethnic minority men and women apply. If they did, they would be considered in exactly the same way as white applicants. There wouldn’t be any positive discrimination which would be just as patronising.

As far as The Queen is concerned it wouldn’t matter if a person were black, white, brown or yellow. If he or she were the right person for the job they would get it. Her Majesty is arguably the least prejudiced person in
the United Kingdom and throughout her sixty years on the Throne she has entertained in her homes men and women of every race, colour and creed.

But if there is one stipulation that The Queen makes it is that she prefers dealing with men than women. Which is why no woman has ever been appointed Lord (or Lady) Chamberlain, or to the most
important
role in the Household, that of Private Secretary. A Crown Equerry riding sidesaddle is also an unlikely sight in the near future, but if a female financial whiz kid emerged as a possible future Keeper of the Privy Purse, Her Majesty would raise no objections. Where royalty is concerned, money has no gender.

But, as the former Archbishop of Canterbury, the late Robert Runcie, said, ‘As far as The Queen is concerned we are all the same. It doesn’t matter if you are the man who stokes the boilers or the Lord Chamberlain. She treats everyone in exactly the same way. We are all servants. She may become attached to one or two (Bobo McDonald, her former Nanny, is a perfect example) but everyone is a servant and nothing more, and when you fall off the twig, that’s it. It is as if you were never there in the first place.’ It’s ‘them’ and ‘us’ at its most basic.

While The Queen appreciates the hard work and dedication of her staff, she has been there longer than any of them, and she does not place too much
reliance
on any of them, no matter how important they may think they are to her. She knows that the moment one departs, for whatever reason, a replacement will be found immediately. It’s the only way she can live her life. Twenty years is a long time for a royal servant
to remain at the Palace. The Queen has been on the Throne three times that long already. Prime Ministers, Popes and Presidents have come and gone during her reign and there is no servant working in the Royal Household today who was there when The Queen moved in to Buckingham Palace in 1952.

The Royal Household continues to be a place of privilege and protocol, snobbery and prestige, and not all of it above stairs either.

There is still the same amount of jockeying for
position
as they all realise that proximity to the Monarch is where the power lies.

In the early days of The Queen’s reign any young man or woman who was taken on as a junior
footman
or housemaid by the Master of the Household considered they were the luckiest people in the land – and they were expected to show that gratitude on a daily basis. Metaphorical forelock tugging was a daily requirement.

Today, new recruits are more confident, better educated, healthier and, as a result, more
independent
. The days of extreme reverence and deference are over. In the past, no junior employee would dream of answering back to a superior on pain of instant dismissal. Today, if a footman believes he is in the right, he will stand his ground – knowing he has the backing of his union helps – but it still might not do his promotion chances any good.

This Household, and by that I include those of The Queen’s children, was once an organisation where nepotism ruled supreme. Jobs were handed down from father to son, generation to generation. Today, it is not
quite like that. These days, it has become more – but not fully – a meritocracy.

Promotion is slow; the money is poor, while the living conditions have barely changed in 100 years. Yet there is still a never-ending line; an unending supply, of candidates willing to devote some, but no longer all, of their working lives in the service of the most famous family in the world.

The Queen takes an extraordinary interest in every aspect of her Household, from the most junior
domestic
servants to the family life of some of her most senior aides even if it is in a strictly ‘hands off’ manner.

Her former Lord Chamberlain, the late Lord (Chips) Maclean was once asked how involved Her Majesty was with the Household. He replied, without hesitation, ‘Why, she runs the place.’

he Royal Household actively encourages recruitment in practically all its categories, offering a wide range of benefits and rewards. What they don’t offer is high salaries. Nobody joins the Household just for the money – or if they do, they are soon disappointed. Most of the jobs available at Buckingham Palace are better paid outside, but none compares in terms of prestige. And young men and women soon realise that a couple of years’ service with fairly rigid discipline and poor wages can practically guarantee an open door to more lucrative employment elsewhere. Nothing influences would-be employers – particularly foreigners – more than a reference written on paper headed with the royal crest.

One former footman at Buckingham Palace left after three years and was immediately snapped up by an American billionaire who not only paid him
$75,000 a year to be his butler, but provided him with a house and two cars: one for himself and another for his wife.

If a young man or woman is starting out on a career in catering or hotel management, he or she cannot do better than a few years working for The Queen.

It is still possible to obtain employment simply by turning up at the side door of Buckingham Palace (it’s the one alongside The Queen’s Gallery) and asking for a job. You won’t be turned away. Everyone is seen. But the days when that was all it took are long gone and with security now of prime importance, every
applicant
– and they receive over 4,000 every year – is vetted and thoroughly checked after they have completed the complicated application form, that takes at least an hour to fill in.

And in this age of technology, when every young man and woman is computer literate, the Palace
advertises
on the internet, so attracts interest from all over the world. They also stress that diversity is the name of the game, so people of every race, religion and sexual orientation are encouraged to apply. But, so far, the number of black front of house staff at Buckingham Palace can be counted on the fingers of both hands.

Technical colleges in Britain are breeding grounds for junior Palace staff and the students cut their teeth by being sent to help out at State Banquets as assistant waiters to give them an idea of what could lay ahead if they decided to apply.

Buckingham Palace has twelve footmen and just three footwomen (who are still called footmen) and they will not increase this ratio. The reason is that
footmen have to be able to be used as valets from time to time when male visitors are expected and female valets would not be suitable as they could find
themselves
in a compromising situation.

An applicant for a job as footman is seen by the Sergeant Footman, the ‘foreman’ of this section of the Master of the Household’s department. If he passes this test he is then interviewed by the Deputy Master and asked lots of questions about his family background, how much he knows about the Royal Family, why does he want to work here, is he prepared to travel, does he like flying – they used to ask if he suffered from sea-sickness, but since 1997, when the Royal Yacht
Britannia
was decommissioned, that no longer applies – does he have a girlfriend and are there any plans for marriage. The Queen prefers single men as domestic staff, and the Deputy Master also tests his social skills. If he successfully passes this interview he is offered a short-term contract, usually six weeks, to see ‘if we like each other’. What this really means is, if the Palace approves.

Then the new boy, or girl, is taken to the Livery Room on the first floor to be fitted out with his uniforms, including the State Livery, some of which dates back to previous reigns. So it doesn’t do to be too choosey or to think too carefully about who and how many people have worn the kit before you. The reason for using old livery is that a new set would cost well over £2,000 and as some of the footmen do not stay all that long it wouldn’t make economic sense to provide every one with a new set. The gilt jackets are also very heavy to wear, 28lbs (12.7kg) so the footmen
need to be fairly fit and strong, as they will be wearing them for several hours at a State Banquet.

Footmen are given a set of ‘guidelines’, which includes no beard as Her Majesty does not care for facial hair. She’s not too keen on moustaches either. They are also warned not to wear perfume or
aftershave
that is too pungent and hair should be kept fairly short. Jewellery is restricted to a watch, and definitely no pierced ears or other parts of the face sporting decoration. Tattoos are also frowned upon, but if they are hidden beneath one’s clothes, no one objects.

There is a preferred minimum height requirement of 5ft 8ins and as a footman standing at 6ft 6ins would obviously stick out like a sore thumb at a State Banquet, nobody of this height would be employed unless he was thought to be of exceptional quality, though there is no hard and fast rule on the upper levels.

Similarly, most front of house staff are of slim build – partly to fit the existing uniforms and partly for the symmetry. At Buckingham Palace nothing is allowed to mar the pristine appearance of everything and everyone. At a banquet even the potatoes and sprouts are measured before they are served to make sure they are of similar dimensions so they won’t spoil the appearance of the dinner plate.

New recruits are required to live in and are allocated a room on the top floor right at the rear of the Palace. For obvious reasons it’s called the Footmen’s Floor. The rooms are small and cramped and not popular because the walls between them are wafer thin so there is not much privacy. Each one is furnished with a single bed – married men live out in one of the Grace and Favour
houses or apartments – a chest of drawers, a wardrobe to hang livery and uniforms, a table, one easy chair and a washbasin, with constant hot water. There are no private bathrooms on this floor.

When the footman moves up the ladder to become a page or valet he moves to the Pages’ Floor at the front of the Palace, with one of the best views in London, straight down The Mall, overlooking the Victoria Memorial, or The Wedding Cake as the staff
irreverently
refer to it.

Here the rooms are much larger and brighter, with a kitchenette and shared bathroom between two occupants.

The chefs are regarded as professionals, a cut above the footmen, so they are given bed-sitting rooms on the ‘Pages’ Floor. But even here there are rivalries. If a larger or better room becomes vacant there is an almighty rush to get it, so if it is heard that one of the Pages is leaving or moving on, the others all start to lobby the Deputy Master of the Household, trying to get a head start.

In the early days of The Queen’s reign, servants were expected to be seen and not heard. Their social life was unimportant and for most employees of the Sovereign it was a case of work to bed and bed to work with little time off for outside activities.

Today, all that is a thing of the past. The Royal Household tries to keep its staff as long as possible by making working and living conditions attractive and inviting.

Recruits can join seven different sports and social clubs, with Football, Cricket, Golf, Bowls, Tennis,
Squash and a Swimming Pool available. There is a licensed bar at Buckingham Palace and at Windsor Castle where drinks are subsidised, while the Sport and Social Club secretary organises Bonfire Night parties, theatre trips and, of course, bingo.

Servants are allowed to invite visitors to their rooms, with the Master of the Household’s prior permission, with the caveat that they should leave by midnight. But some of the younger men and women smuggle partners in for the night and no one seems to mind – or even to know. Though it must be a bit of a tight squeeze with the single bed situation in the servants’ quarters.

As most of the footmen and housemaids are young men and women, there is a certain amount of social intercourse. It usually takes place at what they call ‘Corridor Parties’ in the long alleys between their rooms. Anyone who happens to be staying in hears about the party, music is provided by one of them bringing a collection of CDs (as long as there is not too much noise) and everyone brings a bottle. It’s all harmless fun – and it’s cheap, and no one has to drive home afterwards. This is also where many of the pranks are played on newcomers. One junior footman, who unusually happened to be over six feet tall, arrived on his first night to find that the sheets on his bed had been folded back to half their normal size. In other words he had been given an ‘apple-pie’ bed. Thinking this was the way the Royal Household preferred it to be, the poor man slept for a week with his knees tucked up under his chin, before they took pity on him and revealed it was a joke. He
told me he thought it was because the Master of the Household was trying to save money by using only half the sheets.

The protocol that controls life above stairs in all the royal residences, with those higher up the Line of Succession taking precedence over those lower down, even among siblings, is repeated below stairs.

The Palace Steward, the most senior member of The Queen’s domestic Household, would not dream of having a quiet drink with a junior footman and if he saw the Page of the Chambers, his deputy,
socialising
with someone below him in the Palace hierarchy, he would have a word, warning him to ‘maintain his dignity’ and ‘remember your position’. Both these men began their careers as junior footmen, so they know the score, having learned their place many years earlier.

When the Court moves, say from Buckingham Palace to Balmoral, the servants who are
accompanying
The Queen travel in order of seniority. If they are flying, the royal chef knows he will be allocated a better seat than one of his kitchen staff. If he wasn’t he would refuse to travel.

The Queen’s Page will be seated somewhere near the front of the aircraft, along with one of Her Majesty’s dressers. Footmen will be at the rear. The Master of the Household allocates seats in aircraft and trains and says the tantrums can occur even for a short journey by coach from London to Windsor. One older servant sulked for days when he was forced to sit next to a housemaid. He even asked the Sergeant Footman to bring the matter up at the next staff meeting.

But when they are moving house, even the most junior staff benefit from the system that has been refined over the years. Their luggage is collected from outside their rooms and by the time they arrive at Balmoral, or wherever it may be, the bags will be
waiting
for them.

The ten weeks in the summer The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh spend at Balmoral is the highlight of the year for the Royal Family, if not exactly for the staff.

It’s a busy time for the servants, with guests to provide for and those interminable picnics so beloved of royalty to organise.

The Queen gives two Ghillies Balls in the Castle to which all the estate workers, inside and out, are invited. Traditional Scottish dancing is the order of the day with the royal ladies in Royal Stuart sashes and the gentlemen in kilts.

Detachments from one of the Scottish regiments are based at the Castle during The Queen’s holiday and one of their duties is to learn the intricate steps of all the Scottish dances as they too are among the guests.

It’s a very democratic evening, with the carpenters and gamekeepers partnering the Princess Royal and the other royal ladies, while Charles, Andrew and Edward take the maids and dressers onto the floor.

An elderly aunt of Prince Philip’s once found herself dancing with a very personable young man. As the staff are warned that they should never initiate conversation with royalty, the man stayed silent until the aunt asked what he did, thinking he might be a distant nephew she had never met. When he replied
that he worked as a boatman on Loch Muick (where Charles and Anne were taught to sail by their father), she told him that her husband, who was in fact a Grand Duke, had also wanted to be in the navy, so they would have had a lot in common. It’s that sort of evening. The next morning everyone was back in his rightful place.

It’s perhaps just as well that entertainment at Balmoral is home grown, as there is little else to do for healthy young men and women, which is why they all prefer to be in London or Windsor where the bright lights are near at hand.

Where the Royal Family’s entertainment is concerned, their tastes rarely change. Sporting activities in the daytime with the male members apparently enjoying themselves lying in damp gorse for hours at a time stalking a stag. Before the Court moves to Balmoral, the Master of the Household contacts Her Majesty’s Page to find out which films and television they would most like to see. These are then obtained from the distributors, BBC, ITV and Channel 4, free of charge and shown either in the private cinema at the Castle or placed in one of the video recorders.

The Queen’s senior dresser is contacted to find out which books Her Majesty and His Royal Highness are interested in and copies are placed in the library at Balmoral or in the bedrooms as both The Queen and Prince Philip like to read in bed.