Catching the Queen’s eye as she chatted to guests in the drawing room at Birkhall, the Prince of Wales’s summer retreat in Aberdeenshire, I let her know that dinner was served.
‘Oh, very good,’ she said and immediately started walking with me along the corridor leading to the dining room.
Suddenly, she stopped, went back and, looking into the drawing room, saw that everyone, including Charles and Camilla, was still talking. No one had made a move to follow her.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘we will see about that.’
The next thing I knew, she bolted along the corridor. She might have been in a gown and dress shoes and in her 80s, but she actually ran.
I didn’t know what to do. Where in the butler’s manual does it say what you are supposed to do when a monarch starts running? There was nothing else for it but to speed after her, half skipping along as she kept up her pace and ran around to her chair at the table.
After I’d helped her get seated, she looked at me and then at her watch. The next thing we heard was the thunderous noise of everyone else running along to save face, as etiquette dictated that they should have been with her when she left the room.
As everyone, including Charles and Camilla, practically fell over themselves into the dining room, Her Majesty looked at me and winked. As always, it was an absolute honour to be in her presence, but you never knew what was going to happen next.
Grant Harrold began working for the future king when he was 25 years old, in April 2004
Harrold was a working-class boy from Airdrie, an industrial town some 17 miles east of Glasgow
Harrold had long been fascinated by the monarchy. So much so that, when he was three, Harrold asked for a dolls’ house for Christmas and placed little clay Royal Family characters inside
It was one of the little things that amused her and showed the fun, mischievous side which she shared with her eldest son.
I first began working for the future king in April 2004. Then 25, I was a working-class boy from Airdrie, an industrial town some 17 miles east of Glasgow, and I had long been fascinated by the monarchy. So much so that, when I was three, I asked for a dolls’ house for Christmas and placed in it little clay characters I imagined were the Queen and the Royal Family.
After leaving school, I joined the housekeeping staff at the Scottish country estate owned by a Swiss banker and from there I worked my way up to become butler at Woburn Abbey, the family seat of the Duke of Bedford.
Then came the opportunity to work for Prince Charles at Highgrove, which is near Tetbury in Gloucestershire.
After passing five interviews with different members of the Prince’s team, I was summoned to Clarence House to meet the man himself. I was terrified but somehow I managed to remain composed and two days later I was offered the job.
Arriving at Highgrove on Easter Saturday, I settled into my accommodation, a cold and rather damp little cottage once occupied by Princess Diana’s butler Paul Burrell. But after only a couple of days I flew up to Scotland, to be with Charles and Camilla who were on holiday at Birkhall.
Along with other members of staff, I was picked up at Aberdeen airport by Charles’s head butler Fred and as we drove into the grounds of the white-fronted 18th-century house, he spotted our employer in the grounds. ‘It’s the Prince,’ he said. ‘Everyone has to bow.’
Instinctively, we all lowered our heads. Seconds later, we pulled up at the back of the house and, sure enough, there was His Royal Highness striding towards us, dressed in his familiar country tweeds.
‘Is everything OK?’ he said. ‘I just saw a car driving and there was nobody in it.’
‘Ah, yes, sir, we were bowing,’ the butler explained. ‘I see,’ he smiled before carrying on his way.
The following morning, as I did some tidying on the ground floor, I saw Charles and Camilla at the end of a corridor and for some reason I froze. Nobody had explained to me the etiquette if I bumped into them. Was I allowed to speak to them, or should I wait until spoken to? If I didn’t engage, would that appear rude?
Unsure of what to do, I noticed a door on my right-hand side and ducked inside, realising too late that it was a cupboard used to store drinks and glassware, all rattling loudly when I shut the door behind me.
After passing five interviews with different members of the then Prince of Wales’s team, Harrold was summoned to Charles’ Highgrove country retreat, to meet the man himself
Late he joined Charles and Camilla who were on holiday at Birkhall, Charles’ Scottish retreat
Not to worry, I thought. They probably didn’t even notice me in the corridor. I thought I’d give it a few seconds and come out when the coast was clear but then I heard footsteps and voices getting louder as they stopped outside the door. Scared to breathe, I prayed they would keep walking. ‘Do you think he’s OK?’ So much for not being seen. And they must know what’s in here.
‘I wonder what he’s looking for,’ Camilla chuckled. ‘Do you think he’s having a drink?’
‘Do you think he’s going to come out?’ said the Prince of Wales.
Any thoughts of styling this out were long gone. I opened the door, bowed my head and said: ‘Good morning, Your Royal Highnesses.’ Both were grinning widely. Without waiting for a response, I opened a door opposite which, thankfully, led to a staircase and bolted back to the sanctuary of the butler’s pantry.
As Charles and Camilla sat down for breakfast, I could hear them giggling that the newest member of the team was so panicked, he’d dived into a cupboard.
It was nice that I had made them laugh and I felt relaxed that I’d entered such a comfortable environment. That was when I’d had time to reflect . . . and the mortification had finally worn off.
Two weeks after arriving at Birkhall, I celebrated my 26th birthday. Being new to the team, I did not expect any fuss to be made but Charles and Camilla gave me a card and a gift, a large, round chocolate coin which was the size of a side plate and bore the head of Queen Victoria.
It was very sweet, because they didn’t have to give me anything, and I was extremely grateful.
After a very pleasant and enjoyable stay at Birkhall, we returned to Highgrove where, as with every new house, it was important to learn the daily routine, starting at 7.30am with the ‘calling trays’ laid out with tea or coffee and biscuits, and the newspaper.
Between 8am and 10am there was breakfast, and between 11am and noon it was elevenses. From noon to 12.30pm there were pre-lunch drinks, then from 12.30 to 2.30pm it was lunch.
Between 2pm and 3pm there was more coffee, from 4pm it was afternoon tea, and at 6.30pm we set up for pre-dinner drinks. Dinner was from 8pm to 10pm, or there might be supper at 9pm. The only thing people must be ready for after all that, I thought, was WeightWatchers.
One day, I was chatting to the chef when someone appeared at the kitchen door and, without warning, hurled something wet and rubbery in my direction.
Realising who and what it was, I did a double-take. OK, I thought, so this is happening… Prince Harry has just arrived home and I’m getting a water balloon thrown at me.
I hadn’t yet met Harry, who was then 19, and there was nothing I could do but dive into a larder at the back of the kitchen and climb outside via a small window covered with netting to stop the flies getting in.
Between 8 and 10am there was breakfast, and between 11am and noon it was elevenses. From noon to 12.30pm there were pre-lunch drinks, then from 12.30pm to 2.30pm it was lunch, says Harrold
I could scarcely believe what I was doing and, as soon as I hit the ground, another balloon smacked me on the back, soaking my shirt. I looked up to see that Harry had run upstairs and was throwing them from a window.
I ran around the house and bumped into him as I came back inside.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I’m just being a bit silly.’ And that was my introduction to Prince Harry.
At the time he was on a gap year before he applied to the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst for officer training and, as a result, I saw less of him than I did his brother.
Prince William was friendly, polite and straight to the point. He told me that I could call him William, which felt like a big deal because not many people addressed him purely by his first name.
William was, of course, dating Kate Middleton at this time and it wasn’t long before I met her too. I was downstairs in the butler’s pantry when they came in. Again, it was all very relaxed and informal as I introduced myself, and she replied, ‘I’m Kate.’ She was very polite, sweet and personable.
What I liked about William and Kate was that it took a while to build up their trust. With Prince Charles, it had begun right away, but with his elder son it took about six months to a year to build up the relationship to a point where he felt comfortable.
That summer we decamped to Sandringham in Norfolk for the annual flower show. I had never seen such a massive mansion and it was like being in a time capsule, with the antique wardrobe and bed in my sparsely furnished single room still stamped with the ‘VR’ cypher of Queen Victoria. Working in the butler’s pantry one day, I noticed a Velux window in the ceiling through which you could see all the way to a valet room upstairs.
Another butler told me that Princess Diana used to look down to the pantry and pull faces at the staff to make them laugh. I could imagine her doing something that, but it was also strange and sad to think that she used to be up there looking down.
Like their mother, Princes William and Harry showed such natural warmth and compassion, and never more so than when children who would be spending Christmas in a hospice came to Highgrove to meet the Royal Family and decorate a tree. It was heartbreaking but also uplifting to see the joy on their young faces as they met the young princes.
Camilla, too, was there and, equally, was so sweet with them all. The children loved it.
At that year’s staff Christmas party, I was caught up in a water fight instigated by William in the salubrious surroundings of St James’s Palace.
I was delighted to see that he was on my table. It was the first time I’d really had a chance to speak to him, and it was lovely to find him so down to earth and approachable. Then he and another member of staff started filling up water balloons and firing them at each other over the table.
It was hilarious. Everyone was in fits of laughter. It was like hanging out with any young man, except this one was a future king.
Grant Harrolds book is to be published on August 28
Another royal residence we visited regularly was the Castle of Mey on the far north coast of Scotland, a property Prince Charles had inherited from the late Queen Mother.
On my first trip there, we went up on the Queen’s Flight, a special private jet for the use of the Queen and her family, but, just as I was thinking I could get used to this lifestyle, we hit really bad turbulence and I have never wanted to get off a plane quicker.
Without thinking, I got up and made for the exit as soon as it was safe to do so on landing. It was then I noticed a little mirror by the door. That’s quite handy, I thought, being able to check your appearance before you disembark.
The crew opened the door and I got a shock to see lots of flashes going off below. It was the Press, there to welcome Prince Charles’s arrival.
A voice behind me said: ‘Oh, I think that’s for me.’
Mortified, I stood back and let His Royal Highness go first, making a mental note not to walk off a plane before the boss. As soon as it was acceptable to do so, I rushed down the steps and headed for the nearest toilet.
As I discovered at the Castle of Mey, the royal staff loved playing pranks on each other, and Prince Charles was often in on the fun. Retiring to my room one night, I nearly jumped out of my skin when, behind the bedroom door, I saw a figure in royal uniform. My considerate colleagues had taken a mannequin that had been standing in the kitchen and put it in my room. Only now could I hear peals of laughter echoing up the stairwell.
The following morning, I was serving the Prince breakfast and he asked if I had slept well.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, feeling my cheeks starting to burn.
‘I thought I heard something,’ he said.
‘Yes sir,’ I said. ‘I screamed last night because a mannequin had been put behind my door. It’s normally in the kitchen. Somebody put it in my room to scare me because we’d been telling ghost stories.
‘No!’ he said, then burst out laughing. ‘I knew all about it,’ he told me.
Camilla has a great sense of humour too. When we returned to Birkhall soon afterwards, she told me that she had encountered two American tourists while out walking by Lochnagar, the mountain to the south of the River Dee.
They let her know that when you’re out walking in the area, there’s a good chance you might see members of the Royal Family.
‘Oh, I’ll need to keep a look-out then,’ she’d told them.
They’d had no idea who they were talking to.
I would never tire of being privy to such little moments with Charles and Camilla – but sometimes they bordered on the bizarre, as when the Prince was trying to create an
archway made of antlers outside Birkhall. As he tried to attach the antlers to the woven wire arches, they were swinging backwards and forwards and I got the call to come and help him.
Bloody hell, I thought, the future king is going to be impaled. Either that, or I will be!
Somehow, we managed to secure them without skewering each other. It was yet another moment with the Royal Family I could never have imagined experiencing. And, as I will describe in tomorrow’s Mail on Sunday, there were many more to come.
- Adapted from The Royal Butler by Grant Harrold (Seven Dials, £22), to be published on August 28.
- Grant Harrold 2025. To order a copy for £19.80 (offer valid until August 30, 2025; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
