MEMOIR:A summer spent working in Buckingham Palace presented an opportunity to see who took the royal cutlery
I WAS initially puzzled by the lack of any invitation for me to meet Queen Elizabeth on her visit. But I know the reason they don’t want us to meet. They are afraid I will dish the dirt in connection with the disappearance of her cutlery. So now is the time for me to go public on aspects of my own, hitherto unchronicled, career in the British royal household.
It was the summer of 1966. Half a dozen of us took the boat train to Euston to make a few pounds for college fees. We presented ourselves at the headquarters of J Lyons Co Catering, they of the eponymous tea shops that then dotted every English town.
A cheerful man in a brown coat, named – quite inappropriately – Mr Crabbe, singled me out from the waiting line, along with Kieran Moran from Leitrim.
“Ow would you fellers like to work at Bucking’am Palace?”
As an alternative to emptying trash cans in a corner caff and at five bob an hour it seemed to be a no-brainer.
“Old out yer ’ands, then,” he said. We did. Mr Crabbe checked that our fingernails were clean. Also, we were white. We had thus passed all the tests necessary to be enrolled as catering porters at the summer garden parties at Buckingham Palace.
Early next morning about a dozen of us were in a Joe Lyons van, speeding along The Mall towards the palace, decked out in white aprons and gloves, with the genial Mr Crabbe up front like John Wayne in Stagecoach.
We were a dubious lot. One fellow was on the run from the police in France. Another turned out to have escaped from Broadmoor. A pock-marked Scot told us he worked security for Dusty Springfield but he had left after a “misunderstanding”. There was an American theology student who claimed to be working his way to Tibet.
Mr Crabbe set out the rules. Once in the palace grounds we were in no circumstances to speak to any member of the royal household, however lowly. We were to keep out of sight of the guests until the time came to swoop down on the tables where we delivered sponge cake, curly sandwiches and iced coffees. Any nibbling at the food would result in pay being docked. Any tippling at the wine (this privilege was reserved to selected members of the Metropolitan Police) would result in instant dismissal for us.
It would be an exaggeration to say we hung out with the royal family a lot of the time. But we did have some encounters.
Every morning, by tradition, a piper plays on the balcony while they are having breakfast inside. One morning, in contravention of Mr Crabbe’s orders, I went over to have a closer look. A small boy emerged and threw a ball at me – which I promptly threw back. This went on for a few minutes until a nursemaid swooped on the poor child and dragged him inside, screaming. His name was Andrew.
“Er majesty,” as Mr Crabbe referred to the monarch, came out to inspect us before each party. We lined up dutifully. She marched up the line of nondescripts, Mr Crabbe gliding along at her side. She uttered not one word but she smiled pleasantly. I believe she had the two Corgis as her heels, the Hermes scarf and the Barbour jacket. (But maybe I’m thinking of Helen Mirren).
It was idyllic. Money for jam. We had a week between parties. In that time we were supposed to set up tables and chairs, clean out the marquees, count out and replace the crockery and cutlery. It emerged some guests seemed to think it quite acceptable to take the monarch’s spoons and forks home. Mr Crabbe warned us to pretend not to notice.
“If you should ’appen to see a titled lady stickin’ a couple o’ spoons in ’er ’andbag or an officer in dress uniform pocketin’ a small cream jug or a salt cellar, do not pay any h’attention or cause a fuss. They is all properly listed in the company’s account to the chamberlain’s department and anyway they is all h’imported from ’ong Kong.”
Mostly, however, we just lay about on the grass, basking in the sun. We listened to the Mamas the Papas and the Stones and Bob Dylan on somebody’s transistor and there were arguments about the World Cup. On the days of the parties, however, we would spring into action with an agility that surprised even Mr Crabbe, plying archdeacons, lady mayoresses and girl-guide leaders with tepid champagne and trays of Joe Lyons’s dainties.
Like all good things, it came to an end. Those with further career ambitions in the catering business went on with Joe Lyons to the motor racing at Brand’s Hatch or to the Games Fair at Lingfield. Kieran Moran and I went home. In due course, He went off to Australia having qualified in paediatrics. I went to UCD and ended up in journalism.
If I were to have been at the top table in Dublin Castle I would have had no difficulty in providing “Er Majesty” with at least a good description of the dignitaries “wot pinched ’er spoons” the summer England won the World Cup.
Conor Brady is a member of the Garda Ombudsman Commission and a former editor of
The Irish Times