Yes, Ma’am: The Secret Life of Royal Servants by Tom Quinn

Author:Tom Quinn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Biteback Publishing
Published: 2025-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Food, glorious food: eating, drinking and making merry

‘Edward VII enjoyed playing golf. He also enjoyed explaining to his guests that his golf bag was made from the skin of an elephant’s penis.’

– Retired domestic servant, author interview

‘Does everyone expect me to be a caring person and not have a cigarette or a beer?’

– Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex

Daily life for servants in the royal palaces ran – and still runs – like clockwork, but there were always two worlds running in parallel. Nurses and nannies would look after the royal children in the nursery; the other servants would run everything else. Kitchen maids and other maids only rarely moved into the nursery; likewise, footmen. A nursery footman was a very different creature from an ordinary footman, as a former Buckingham Palace maid recalled:

Nursery footmen were always seen as a cut above the rest – they had to be just that bit more genteel as they worked closely with the royal children. Nursery maids were the same. I have no idea what little clues the senior staff were looking for when they made their choice – sometimes I think it was just good looks. A nice-looking young man was always more likely to be offered a nursery footman’s role and it was the same with the nursery maids. The pretty ones got the job. We used to joke that the rest of us were so ugly we might give the princesses nightmares!

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