Word: royalities
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Indeed, the staff--which number in the hundreds--often act like they own the place. Many exchange gossip with the Queen herself, though they wait until she's out of sight before boxing an unruly Royal baby on the ear (the young rascal Prince Andrew once got a black eye from an exasperated footman, but the Queen said nothing). Competition for prestigious jobs, like serving at state banquets, can be fierce, and the slightest brashness inevitably leads to a servant's being "sacked...
With their archaic titles--some are actually called "Coal Porters"--the staff indulges every whim and want of the Royals. Even the beloved Queen mother will send the cooks scouring the stores for fresh strawberries in December, laughing "it's just a little treat." Princess Margaret routinely kept the staff up to 3 or 4 a.m. until the Queen intervened, since they all had to be up at 7. But there are occasional moments of compassion: "Charles himself has often broken Royal habit by sometimes bathing the children," Barry notes. However, Charles' interest in child-rearing came in part because...
...luckiest servants become condants of the Royals and move into stately country homes at their retirement. For the rest, life is hardly as nice. The family guards its millions, and Barry has included a chapter on "Royal Penny Pinching...
...International Press. She fought incessantly with her husband, but Barry does his best to dance around these scenes. "Everyone at the Palace was worried that the fairy tale romance was going to collapse," he admits, but ultimately he tells little of specific quarrels-the type of gossip that Royal watches crave...
...leaves the reader feeling betrayed, Barry, who tries his readers by writing in sentence fragments, simply refuses to part with scandalous or embarrasing anecdotes, though he reminds us that he knows many. The closest we come is a scene of the Queen spreading newspaper over the carpeting of the Royal Train. It was for her prized corgis to use, in lieu of "walkies...