To find the royal family fascinating part 3

[BishopBrennansArse]

Don’t use it yet just putting it here ready for when part 2 runs out....

What happened to the latest MM thread - did the usual wreckers turn up to get it deleted?

I was going to post this one on there, but anyway it seems someone got excited after seeing a car carrying pink blankets driving through Windsor ... and later the Evening Standard published the following:

"It has emerged that the car arriving at Windsor Castle with "pink blankets in the window" was reportedly carrying the Queen to present a service of the Royal Victorian Order at St George's Chapel today"

Not sure how complimentary it is to mistake the Queen for a pile of blankets, pink or otherwise!!

It turned into a bunfight according to the last post (from MNHQ) that I saw so was being deleted.

Easy mistake to make lol - When I was in London and had to wait an age to cross the road I'm sure I could have easily mistaken the Queen for blankets... (well right up until the point the Japanese tourists next to me screamed and nearly left me deaf)

oh! Thanks daisypie definitely will buy it when I’m next in the states.

Yes I've read before that many of the palace staff are gay

Apparently it stems from the time when sex between men was illegal. It was in both parties' interest to turn a blind eye to the other's proclivities. 'We'll keep your secrets if you keep ours' setup.

Ahh Lyra beat me to it!

Great minds Funky!

They are on bloody mimimum wage but they could probably get their own Tesco puddings! I'd expect Fortnum and Masons at least

They were when i worked there, you had to have worled tbere for at least 6 months before you got the bloody pudding though. As if you'd think, I'll hang onto this crappy job until i get the pudding then quit.

I remember a few times the puddings we got were leftovers from previous years and were either out of date or about to go out of date. I guess it was probably fine to eat, i usually gave mine away as i don't like it, but what a way to show how little you value your staff. We'll chuck a bit of out of date food their way. I'd rather have received nothing.

but I suppose they believe the rewards are worth it? Certainly a job at the palace will look good on a CV ...

Errr

No and no, for me... it was during the financial crash and all i could get at the time, bar cleaning the interior of trains for Scotrail.

Working for the Royal Collection (as i did) rather than the Royal Household might have made a difference.

They were shite employers anyway. They were serial exploiters of zero bour contracts and when they were shamed into offering us something longer term, they would send us home when kt was quiet in the afternoon and then we'd 'owe' them whole days of work. Pay was atrocious too.

I have to laugh at these threads. In the old days the goings on in the RF were kept under wraps but with Internet forums and such these days there is nowhere to hide! Good thing too.

I remember a few times the puddings we got were leftovers from previous years and were either out of date or about to go out of date. I guess it was probably fine to eat, i usually gave mine away as i don't like it, but what a way to show how little you value your staff. We'll chuck a bit of out of date food their way. I'd rather have received nothing.

funky , that’s just cheap!

What about bonuses? Were they good? If you got one of course !

What about bonuses? Were they good? If you got one of course !

Err no, unless you count beong paid a few pence above the minimum wage as a bonus.bwe did get stale samdwiches from the cafe, but that was because we couldn't leave the site on breaks witgout getting changed.

The job itself slef was piss easy, stand in a room and make sure nolne touches anything but the boredom in winter got a bit much and people went a bkt stir crazy, one womam started systematically picking oit her own eyelashes theough boredom.

You rarely if ever saw members of the royal family as most of is had to take annual leave when the Queen or Prince of Wales was there so no real insider gossip either. I actually went out of my way to avoid meeting them due to the bowing and scraping involved.

Most of us were supremely unimpressed by ths royals and at least a quarter to a half were republicans (me included, becoming more militantly so the longer i worked there).

The real bane of our lives were management from London, clueless Tufton Bufton tyles who were inevitably the idiot son or daughter of Lord someone or other and would be given a soft position they were unqualified and unsuited for. They generally treated you like shite on the sole of their handmade shoes. One tried to get us onside by saying how much she enjoyed coming to Scotland as she was 'ginger amd liked a drink.' Which was recieved in the stony silence it deserved. She wasn't even that ginger.

She wasn't even that ginger.
One of the best lines ever, FunkyKingston!

I won't pretend I spat out my vodka tea or cried with laughter but I did let out an amused "Hah!" loud enough to make the cat's ears twitch.

I remember a few times the puddings we got were leftovers from previous years and were either out of date or about to go out of date

OMG that's awful ... and so is the rest of your experience

I really am so sorry, Funky; obviously it was naive of me to believe they'd at least treat their staff decently. My own idea of real class is to behave properly to everyone no matter what their status happens to be, but clearly they don't feel able to manage that

Puzzled ,i have no idea how the royals threat their houshold staff personally, but the organisation as a whole was unpleasant to work for, well it was if you were on the lowest rungs, those higher up seemed to hace a whale of a time.

Some of the keen royalists took the line that 'oh if only the Royal Family knew how badly management treated us they'd be appalled', but that was i think wishful thinking on their part. I don't think tge Queen lersoally decided to send a wgole bunch of out of date puddings personally and as a deliberate snub, but by the same tolen they could and should have known that staff were not paid a living wage and were on zero hour contracts.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/2019043072509/royal-news-buckingham-palace-jobs-ranked/%3fviewas=amp

Yes the higher end sounds cushy.

Keith Allen made a documentary about the car crash, I think alleging things towards the RF but wouldn’t make the cuts the lawyers said had to be made for it to be shown here so it’s only been shown abroad I think.

Christ, we weren't on even close to nine pounds an hour abd that was less than 10 years ago.

Funky under the circumstances I think you're being very fair, but IME of any organisation - royal or otherwise - the ethos comes from the top. Nobody suggests the "main royals" will know every little detail of how things are done, but I'd expect them at least to have a general understanding of how staff are treated

As I suggested, it really doesn't seem much to ask considering the endless benefits they enjoy

puzzled To be fair, i went into it with very low expectations of what the royals were like and those impressions were well and truly confirmed.

I’ve been in the UK for the last week and a half visiting my folks but am off back to tomorrow Oz. I’m a Brit by blood though

Not sure how much more open the press are going to be over there, it’s the same internet the world over.

Not sure how much more open the press are going to be over there, it’s the same internet the world over.

Apparently you see far more over there than we do here. Especially pap shots.

The gay stuff in part stems from a patriarchal preference for gay men in roles involving contacts with elite women. It’s like an updated version of a eunuch, it gives the husband insurance their wives won’t be furiously bonking the butler or some other Chatterleyesque scenario. Made their bloodline more secure.

Incidentally I’m reading a really good book about Princess Margaret at the moment. She was a horror!

There’s an anecdote about her being at dinner with the French Ambassador when a course with sauce was served. She commented on the ‘disgusting sauce’ then later on the Ambassador accidentally splashed her with the sauce. She held out a napkin and barked ‘Wipe’ at him and he had to kneel down and dab her dress clean. When the ambassador’s wife offered to help she snapped ‘Why should you, he splashed me with revolting sauce, he can clean it up.’

Apparently she was so acerbic in her latter years people were reluctant to attend parties where she was present and hosts had to offer bribes to get people to come and agree to talk to her for 5 minutes.

MarkleSparkle

Keith Allen made a documentary about the car crash, I think alleging things towards the RF but wouldn’t make the cuts the lawyers said had to be made for it to be shown here so it’s only been shown abroad I think.

This documentary is actually available to watch in full on YouTube.

It makes for interesting viewing.

The Keith Allen doc should be easy to find. It's great and makes some good points.

FannyWork

Incidentally I’m reading a really good book about Princess Margaret at the moment. She was a horror!

If you don't mind me asking, what book are you reading? After hearing all about her on these threads, I'd quite like to ready a biography about her.

*read