Royal Servants - Part 1 of 2

[Music] there are over 700 servants working for the royal family that can they all be trusted indispensable personal servant law servants have become threats to their master when they start blabbing and blabbing can earn you a fortune he is gonna be a very rich manner for this book well good because he deserves it but not all servants can be bought servants should keep their mouths shut [Music] coming up tonight we hear about the highs and lows of serving the royal family a plop a gravy wentz plop straight down the Queen Mother's cleavage and hear what life was like as Princess Di's personal chef she used to come down into the kitchen she would burst through the doors and say you'll never believe what Fergus just told me and why on earth do poorly paid servants work such long hours as always as if they're in the presence of something special that it rubs off on them and the reality is that a massive buzz for these people the undercover journalist who blagged his way into Buckingham Palace will tell us the downside of being close to the Royals I remember one of the more senior footmen said good morning your highness and he was greeted with that God and the journalist who helped Paul Burrell write his book sets the record straight the story that Paul grovelled the princess's feat is utter nonsense tonight we'll go through Palace stores to discover the intimate details of life as a royal servant [Music] behind the scenes Butler's layout clothes footmen carry early-morning trays and housemaid sweep carpets lest royal ears are offended by vacuum cleaners the best serpent is the one that's neither seen nor heard they want you there but they don't they want you there because you have to be there they won't be there because they can't manage without you the Prince of Wales he doesn't lift the thing he gets up in the morning his bathrobe is there waiting in front he walks into the bathroom the bath is drawn for him already even when he gets out of the bath the towel is folded in a special way so that he just has to sit in it and wrap it around him then he goes into his dressing room his clothes are all laid out for him even his socks a left and right run exactly the right spot there might be some function which involves a picnic where the Queen will say well we will all muck in but of course it's mucking in in some directions and there's mucking in in others I mean actual fat is quite well-known that the Duke of Ember may well turn a sausage but he won't wash the plate up mucking in and turning sausages are the exception royal family demand the most professional servants in the world the kind of servants who would rather die than make mistake when I was serving the Queen Mother one evening Banting with the gravy and the sauce and as I went down the gravy bought sled so I grabbed it quickly and a plop a gravy whence plopped straight down the Queen mother's cleavage and and it was red up gravy and her beautiful blue eyes went cold and she was badly burned and it was just seconds and a fifth rose with the pain and the steam coming up from her cleavage she look like Joan of Arc and I felt as guilty I felt dreadful I said your majesty I'm terribly sorry and I meant it and the Queen Mother said well the one who's sorry she said Paul she said I actually nudged your elbow she hadn't touched me at all there was no physical contact that was her gracious way of realised and the agony I was in as to put in her and extreme agony but it doesn't always work so well some of the Windsors can be a nightmare to serve you find yourself being treated badly by members of the royal family then you you find that your lord has really not really been very well placed and you start to want to try and review what it's really like and a servant out for revenge is a dangerous one they know too much they are there if you like an invisible force they're there witnessing and watching what goes on and anything members of the royal family do is big news royal secret sell for the right story servants can earn a king's ransom most famous of these is ex Butler Paul Burrell who published a book about his time with the Queen Prince Charles and Princess Diana they sold about 600,000 around the world in Australia America Canada Britain Europe even Japan and China now in Island we had woman rushing up to just to grab his hand kiss him and say you're a saint one woman in Sydney flung her arms round and wouldn't let go every prize away by security but to those servants who keep silent about their years of service Paul Burrell personifies the worst kind of betrayal as a servant Paul Burrell was great I would love to meet up with Paul and say why have you done this because you see when one servant spills the beans he's letting down all the other servants who wouldn't spill the beans and to me people who do that lower than traitors and should be despised as such whether he's a traitor or a celebrity millionaire Paul Burrell has come a long way from the poor mining town he was born into like many royal servants he wanted to escape from the world he was born into the letter came from the master of the palace to say there's a vacancy there for a dining room steward so I went down to Buckingham Palace nobody knew where I was going and I thought I have a cat in l's chance of getting this job the first initial interview with the but that was okay I felt I was on a level that I could understand but then I moved up a ladder to be interviewed by a private secretary and I've got this broad Lancashire accent which is evident and I imagined like most people imagine to be around the Royals one has to say often laufen both or whatever and I didn't say any of that he said oh is that the applicant at the other end of the room well of course I felt if the floor it opened up I've been gladly gone through the hole then he continued to say well have you taken this young man around the palace and the butler replied well yes I have and what does he think about it with that the butler turns to me and says what do you think about it he didn't give me a chance to answer turn to the secretary again and said he said it's very nice so a month later I was packing my bags from the council house I lived in to move into Buckingham Palace the most prestigious address in the world my mother was absolutely elated she couldn't wait to go and buy a bottle of sherry and ask all the neighbors in to have a glass of it because our son has suddenly got a job and a palace and going through the palace gates is like entering a different world this is completely blown away by the glamour of the wealth and the gloss into the royal family and they come down with a big big dose of red Falcon fever it was luxury I'd never ever seen in my life these vast staterooms the throne room the state ballroom and to be in the same house as the Queen of England and and her family it just seemed you know unreal it isn't just about living in luxury what servants crave is face time it's when junior servants get to actually spend time one-to-one with members of the royal family and the reality is that's a massive buzz for these people when I serve lunch to the Queen for the very first time in my life and she picked the menu up she said whatever I got for lunch and she's reading the menu she had her spectacles on and she puts it back and she said she looked me gave me a beautiful smile she said I think the dogs get better fed it's almost as if they're in the presence of something special that it rubs off on them and they get a real buzz out of it they can go and talk about it to their friends and they feel very important and even though they're paid very little amounts of money and they are living in quite menial quarters this is exactly what they live for and if it's face time you're after no task is too menial as long as you're in the Royal presence it's often been said the Princess Margaret was very difficult of course at a banquet for instance Ora or a big social function it meant you'd have to dance attendance on her all night long by possibly just standing to a left or right with an try so she didn't have to looked what to see where she flicked her ash you know the problem for the royal family is that human ashtrays have ears the royal family living it it's almost not medieval but Edwardian system where they've got servants wandering around the palace and listening and learning what's going on once you are in the royal family's home they are then at your mercy and they then hope that their choice in choosing you to serve them and to look after them has been the right choice the royal family need to be sure that they employ the right people who apply for the right reasons but they don't when palace officials took on Ryan Perry as a footman they couldn't have chosen anyone less suitable he was the mirror's undercover reporter intent on exposing breeches in Palace security they didn't even do the most basic checks it was literally a case of typing my name into a Google search engine and the third item that comes up is Daily Mirror journalists expose his shocking security scandal at Wimbledon it doesn't take a genius to to work out that lots of basic check Ryan Perry was given as much access as a tried and trusted servant the first day was it was literally a grand tour of the palace which was absolutely amazing you know for an outsider going into the palace I mean I was literally shown every nook and cranny and he was perfectly placed to hear all the servants gossip about the Royals well as part of them a footman's duty you have to first of all take a carving tray into a Royals a private bedroom on one occasion that I'll remember one of the more senior footmen telling me he took this train to the Duke of York's bedroom open the curtain said good morning the Royal Highness and he was greeted with it God as well as gossip about the Royals there was evidence of cost-cutting in the last 10 years royal expenditure has been cut by over 50 million pounds and it's not just the Royal Yacht Britannia that's gone in my room at the palace it was very basic you know there was a single bed a wardrobe a sink and it and the chair in it sad drawers and that was it was like a university halls of residence so he wasn't the best kind of home to have and besides his unprincely take-home pay of nine thousand pounds a year there were other signs of cost-cutting too it's up away of course I mean you know that was that was probably one of the more famous things about the about the whole wear story I think that's what people picked up on former servants believe that Ryan Perry planted the Tupperware on the Queen's table the Queen uses top away when she goes out for picnic lunches we were drive ahead in the Range Rovers for the baskets were the flasks and the plastic players the plastic knives and forks the throwaway disposable plastic cooks you get on British Rail and Tupperware things were the lettuce and tomatoes etc in they are the only occasions the Queen uses her top away for outdoor purposes is a common sense usage of Tupperware I literally have this a three second pocket to take that picture so to to kind of find supper where from somewhere and fill it with them porridge oats and stick it and in front of the in the Queen's China plate then there that's ridiculous I'll add to laughs a it was quiet for me in a sense but it was made real if to make the Queen and members of family look pathetic was it necessary for the mirror to publish these pictures in a story about Palace security don't forget we're a national newspaper and we're there to sell newspapers and you know that some of you obvious fact so we can't escape the fact that people are interested in what the Queen has on the breakfast table and that's what the royal family are up against servant know what goes on behind closed doors the royal family don't expect you to go into the Queen's bedroom and photograph her bed the most intimate part of her home absolutely disgusting while loyal servants and the Queen might be outraged Ryan Perry has been rewarded I've made my mark as a journalist you know yesterday I won scoop of the year they what the paper say was and I'll for a young journalist to win that it's a great achievement and I'm very proud of that a scandal surrounding Ryne Perry was enormous and he was only in Buckingham Palace for two months but when a servant who has been at the heart of the royal family for 21 years tells his story then the world's media stops to listen I'm now here in America to tell my side of the story and the truth about the consequences of a case which never should have been brought in the first place royal servants who get close to their masters get to know their secrets and Paul Burrell knows more than most he first served Lady Diana in weeks before her wedding in 1981 she had moved into Buckingham Palace and Paul and a fellow footman went on a special errand for Mark Simpson poor ball trot out of Buckingham Palace and go down in one of the side rows to a McDonald's and bring back three Big Macs some fries and coke they sneak in and it's almost like this Pink Panther escapade tiptoe down the carpet no they'll be in huge trouble if found and they drop off this big map and they have this little Big Mac party and that was the first time Paul saw how breathtakingly normal down-to-earth and genuine the princess was and how lost she was footmen dining as royalty is against all the rules Buckingham Palace operates to strict protocol and the Queen insists that royal etiquette should never be broken there was one occasion when she was having this cocktail party and the then bottle I said tell her Majesty dinner's ready I walked into the middle of the room got the Queen's attention a bear my Heather said Oh Your Majesty your dinner's ready and her first kind of drop just seconds and I thought oh if I just said now I've told her a dinner was ready no harm done but it's not the dawn away it's your majesty dinner is served so she was slightly irritated because she had all these people though the ones in the immediate ears shot had heard me and probably thought well I've got better stuff a Torme in Africa even today that protocol is still firmly it even directs how footmen should walk down the corridors of Buckingham Palace journalist Ryan Perry was told that he should keep to what was called the slow lane corridor was a huge you know the vast long corridors every morning a team of maids Hoover the deep-pile carpet is kind of a hidden rule if you like that we have to walk along the perimeter of the carpet because obviously if we walk straight down the middle then we're going to mess up the lines that the maids have carefully put into the carpet that kind of royal protocol didn't suit tyre she crossed the invisible line that divided royalty from their servants princess would just come down into the kitchen and just walk down the stairs and just say hi Darrin and you know that was just wonderful you just sort of look you know shot what are we doing and stole what you were doing and and just look up and you know Princess Diana was there but that didn't go down well with some of the more traditional staff part of the old brigade just didn't think he was right that the Royals came down to the kitchen and then there were the others a little bit jealous that someone like Princess Diana would come down and instead of going to the senior member of staff she would look out for the friendly faces that she knew jealousy and resentment are rife belowstairs servants fight to get the top jobs that will get closer to the Royals because there are so few vacancies it's literally dead men's shoes to actually become the Queen's Butler or the Queen's senior footman or whatever it's a rare position some of these men and women are their 50-year so if you was to say in the staff dining room when you're having your own meal I'm getting fed up of working 14 hours a day seven days a week I haven't got time for a social life I haven't been on to see my family in weeks somebody's earwigging on the next table I think so there run along to the master and say excuse me sir I've heard that such about this thinking of leaving and could I apply should that position come available but Paul Burrell didn't have to wait for a butler to die as an ambitious young servant he was given the chance of a lifetime he was invited to be Butler to the couple who would one day rule the country it was a massive promotion but as he helped the Queen and her lady-in-waiting into the car on his last day he was leaving the woman he had come to idolize and he does what he always does he places a rug over their knees and he stands back stiff backs but all the time in the back of his mind he knows as his final duty and he's waiting for some recognition a flicker of emotion perhaps a farewell gesture and he stands there waiting and waiting and the Queen's looking straight ahead and their stiff upper lip doesn't quiver and the car drove off no that was it that was it goodbye that's what elder servants have come to expect from their royal masters there's no good whinging when they don't react in a way you feel they should react their royal and of it they always will be royal so we will never be elevated to their status and we servants must never expect them to come down to ours she's friendly never your friend Paul Burrell was going to be buckler to The Prince and Princess of Wales and he was going to see the difference between their household and the Queen's Prince Charles is memo mad with the Queen instructions were verbally issued via the proper network with Prince Charles the big difference was that he went into this crazy system of memo writing you know to the point where there's something that's dropped in the bend and you want it to be retrieved you know ask for servant to pick it out a bit Prince Charles tended to write a letter so I think something's dropped in the bin could you try and clean it for me Prince Charles also has a legendary temper as a stamp no to their cost one of his later Butler's was Ken Stronach who sold stories to the press which revealed what his master was like to Sir Charlton and Ken start were away for a weekend with friends and sang friends house and Charles was trying to put his own collar stanchion which he doesn't normally do who's a formal truck and he dropped one of the starts and it bounced around the Sacramento plughole Charles in a fury just ripped the sink from the wall it's true it's on the floor shatter into town Smith has retrieved the retrieve the start and can have to put it in then we can have put it in Charles grabbed him by the throat mother says that you do understand can I just have to let this out well ken was so so terrified he sort of backed out of the room but he didn't he didn't know the joke for the rooms they backed into a cupboard and stayed there for 10 minutes before letting himself out by the time Paul Burrell started his job as Butler Charles and Diana's marriage was already in trouble Prince Charles expected his Butler to keep visits to Camilla a secret from the princess poor this gentleman said well are you expecting to be like to lie for you your royal highness and Prince charted well yes yes I am and we're into this histrionics about being the King of England the future King of England the Prince of Wales and you will lie stamping you spin and through this book in Paul's direction it is announced from Buckingham Palace that with regret the Prince and Princess of Wales have decided to separate the marriage was over Princess Diana would set up her own court in Kensington Palace and Paul Burrell was told to go with them in the competitive world of servants it would have been seen as a demotion I bumped into him at a party and the party was a scheduled party was a reception for staff and charity workers which they did every Christmas and there was poor Beryl standing in the corner in one of the rooms of the State Apartments at Kensington Palace blubbing is the best way of putting it with a tumbler of whiskey in his hand I said what's the matter with you he said well I've been told I've got to move to Kensington Palace and work with the princess and I don't want to I don't wanna wait for the princess I don't want to move to Kensington Palace I wish him well be thankful you've got a job to go to but this was Princess Diana's chance to throw out royal protocol and create the kind of court that suited her dinah was far freer she was far more relaxed about the one where she ran her court she would go down and spend time with a chef chat with the chauffeur talk to her bodyguard she was far more relaxed one day she would come in and she'd talk about something she'd just been chatting with the Queen about she would walk in burst through the doors and say you'll never believe what Fergus just told me or she would just come in and say Darren can you believe what's happening on Brookside but it wasn't all happy families Diana's Court still had the traditional palace rivalry between servants and senior staff the senior members the royal household are people at the top end such as private secretaries the person that runs the official life of a member of the royal family and these senior staff have very different backgrounds from the other servants many of them come from the services I think if you have worked in a profession that has a hierarchical structure then that helps and certainly something like the Royal Navy has a very clear hierarchy and having operated within that for more than a decade I was quite at home working in a hierarchical organization like the royal household that means that you're used to taking orders but more often giving orders - there's a snobbery amongst servants there really is the private secretary would think well he's a notch above a butler you know it was like a glorified waiter and then we have to kind of remind him that he's just a pencil pusher and that's I don't plan on bringing a cup of tea to their office get off your butt and brew up yourself but in Diana's Court the pecking order wasn't based on a traditional hierarchy Hurst was an emotional court and seniority was based on how well you got on with her and the person who did that best was Paul Burrell he was a clever and manipulative servant who won Diana's favour by for one of a better word probably being the best sycophant in the whole household how would he do that ma'am you look so gorgeous today that dress is so beautiful oh you're looking wonderful in those shoes isn't it the most beautiful outfit you've worked I don't think I've ever seen you looking so glamorous flattery as Paul Burrell got closer and closer to Diana Patrick Jefferson who was actually more senior to Paul found his job almost impossible to do imagine being Patrick Jefferson you have been the the organizer the efficient organizer to perfect a perfect detail of the princess's world and then all of a sudden you find yourself frozen out you find your word being questioned because the princess is showing letters or asking advice to Paul burrow imagine being practical for a minute and thinking I'm being usurped I'm being questioned by a butler but just like the other members of the royal family diana insisted on absolute loyalty woe betide them if they displeased her shield withhold eye contact from somebody who had displeased her perhaps lavish it on somebody who hadn't done me particularly commendable Diana's chef found himself cold-shouldered for three whole days he was resolved I think one night I sent dinner in and I actually made a smiley face with the stuffed eggplant and the red pepper and sort of did a plate with a smiley face and I think the princess saw the funny side and it sort of things were back on track again by 1996 Patrick Jefferson was out and Diana had become even more reliant on Paul Burrell she be going back to an empty house and being quite lonely she was alone with her thoughts she was alone with her writing a telephone calls a lot of the time alone with the butler and if there is nobody else to talk to I mean some people have dogs have pets and they talk to their pets she talked to her pet she should have never allowed him into her royal domain the Queen is also lonely and on her own and just sat down watching a little TV but she wouldn't dream of saying to me artist somebody else pull a chair or pour a cup of tea let's have another even those who served alongside Paul in Kensington Palace felt that he overstepped the position of trust he was placed in chef Tara McGrady would find him reading her letters on several occasions I would just shout and he would sort of Jim I catch him unaware and he would just sort of look up and smile and just carry on but there were reports that the princess caught Paul Burrell rifling through her papers and was furious he went straight to the Princess of Wales apologized to her begged her not sack him and then fell at her feet then quite literally Ronald at her feet like a whipped Dom it was quite the most shameful thing for anyone to witness but it was and she must have liked his level of groveling because he got to keep his job the story that Paul grovelled where the princess's feet is utter nonsense seen by whom and when you know it suggested that Paul was seen rifling through the princess's correspondence why do you need to rifle through her correspondence when she's willingly showing him one of the final letters she wrote to Paul was we look forward to happier homes and a brighter future and you know thank you for your tower of strength etc etcetera she was taking Paul Burrell with her into the next phase of her life she was taking him to California and she probably lived there six months there six months in Britain but whatever her plans they came to nothing because on the 31st of August 1997 Princess Diana died in a Paris underpass the night her body was lying in state at cancer palace Paul was sitting beside her holding her out running some jewelry of hearse through his fingers throwing some pearls of hers to his fingers which is pretty odd thing to do as with all servants on the death of their master Paul Burrell was out of a job and ex servants are expected to exit gracefully professional Butler's there aren't many in the world the Americans pay thousands of dollars a month to just get an English Butler double that to get an English Butler who can lay claim to having served the royal family plus we become a conversation piece for an issue is Nico Sylvester Stalone to say to Bruce Lee on the phone Bruce Willis my Butler knows that all family you know and for that symbol status in Hollywood they'd pay a fortune the money might have been good in Hollywood and Mel Gibson had already offered him a job but Paul Burrell began to be famous in his own right as the dutiful ex servant of course ladies and gentlemen the Princess of Wales was a genuine giving person and then it all went horribly wrong [Music] in a blaze of media speculation Paul Burrell was arrested he was charged with stealing nearly 300 items from Princess Diana and her sons he made it clear from the outset there were certain matters being kept for safekeeping because he had seen the Spencer's shredding documents and other material and he felt that history in the princes world should not be put through a shredder whether or not the Spencer's were shredding documents Darren McGrady was at Kensington Palace in the days after Diana's death and he has a very different recollection of what Paul Burrell was doing with her belongings after the princess's death Paul did offer me something belonging to the princess but I did decline I said no it's not right I don't want to take you thank you yes we were sitting together in the butler's pantry and it wasn't right I felt uneasy because he was wrong on the ninth day of the trial the case against him collapsed Paul Burrell the former butler of Princess Diana sensationally walk free from court today after an unprecedented intervention from the Queen [Music] where's the tanks is this what you expected of course [Music] all of five days to break the silence of the dutiful servant he made a reputed 300 thousand pounds from the mirror and a year later he published the book he'd sworn never to write Paul and I made a pact that we would never ever talk about the princesses private life I'll never talk about what the princess did and said you know smuggling the princess out in a car Paul says he did that in his book well I took the princess out in my car covered in a blanket I would never ever say where I took her where we were going when I think Paul Bartel wrote the books make money they had a lot of money to pay out after his legal problems at the court and had to make some money but also because he was very very bitter about the whole experience I was wrongly accused of stealing items belonging to the Princess of Wales my name was cleared bringing to an end 21 months of hell no servant should write their revolutionary book because it's just an act of disloyalty it's an act of 12 traitor ISM tell my story was never about money I would welcome back Henry the eighth yeah Oh wonderful unique way of shutting people's mouths it was only ever about the truth then she Reds chopped off you can't say a word Kenya I'm now here in America to tell my side of the story we were put in a wonderful position where we can go out and spread the word about Princess Diana about the good that she did the good stories that she did you know how she did go out in the darkness of night putting things into rubbish bins for people to for the homeless to find putting coats and things out there whether Paul Burrell had revealed the princesses secrets or not there were events in his own past that he wanted to keep from the press he does have a pass which he has tried to hide and has denied the Sun reported on a gay love affair he had about 15 20 years ago with an Australian tourist by name of Greg peed we went over to Sydney to interview Greg and he showed us all the correspondence he had with Paul how he stayed with him about palace now when these allegations were put to Paul Burrell he denied them so that shows the he's willing to lie can we trust his word about Diana's private life if he's willing to lie about his own he's happily married man I think answers his own question he's a happily married man I'm not here to discuss his private life I don't really want to go into great detail about that yes I read stories about him yes I heard stories yes but I don't want to go into great detail and then he has he did gay servants aren't unusual in fact they're a traditional part of Palace life there is a lot of gay stuff the work at Buckingham Palace and in the royal household anyway as such that meticulous care has to be given to the preparation of things the looking after a gentleman's wardrobe is close making sure why he's dressed correctly and well presented all this is a certain type of flair and many gay men have this flair perhaps better than butch you know heterosexual men plus they're not went to marry they're not going to have children so they can give their whole lives to this family and and this is the kind of language the Queen understands gay servants are one thing a gay prince is quite another and when a servant makes that kind of allegation it becomes a national scandal you

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Id: K9yTQ0T1C88

Length: 36min 26sec (2186 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 03 2011