The former royal butler to King Charles, Queen Camilla, Prince Harry and Prince William and the late Queen has revealed what it was like living with the royal family for seven years
A former royal butler has lifted the lid on what it’s really like living with the royal family and it’s a lot more fun than you might think.
In his new book, The Royal Butler, Grant Harrold said he danced with the late Queen and dodged water balloons thrown at him by Prince Harry.
“Now that the Queen has passed and Prince Philip has passed it felt like the right time to share these memories,” he told Josie Gibson and Rylan Clark on ITV’s This Morning.
“These are stories that hopefully they will smile at as they will bring back memories. There’s some great stories that give a different view on the royals that maybe you didn’t know about but without the gossip side of it. The Queen was about fun as we saw towards the end of her life.”
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And Grant – who worked for the Queen from 2004 to 2011 – said it was his lifelong ambition to work as a butler for the royal family. “I watched a documentary about the Queen back in 1992 and said to my father ‘how do you become part of the royal family,’” he explained.
“I didn’t just want to work for them, I wanted to be a part of it. And my father said ‘well you work for them, which is unlikely, or you marry one of them’. And he said ‘you’re probably more likely to marry one of the corgis!'”
“I’m a huge believer that we can make dreams come true – people call it manifestation or praying – a part of the book talks about this and I feel that we can achieve our dreams. I knew that I would get to meet Queen Elizabeth one day and get to know her.”
But despite his determination it wasn’t an easy process. “The interview process was six months,” he revealed. “You feel very lucky to be around the most amazing items and objects and of course the family. You pinch yourself every five seconds.”
And he recalled a funny encounter he had with the king in his early days as a butler. “It was a bit of an awkward one because I was up in Scotland where they are just now and I suddenly saw them at the end of the corridor and I didn’t know what the protocol was – what you should and shouldn’t do – so I dived into what I thought was a room and it was the drinks cupboard,” he laughed.
“I thought he’ll never know that I’m in the drinks cupboard and the next thing I know I heard him say ‘what do you think he’s doing in the drinks cupboard?’ Queen Camilla turned around and said ‘maybe he’s having a little drink’ and then there was a little chuckle.
“So I opened the door and walked out and looked at the two of them and acknowledged them and the two of them thought it was hysterical. I became known as the butler that dived into the cupboard to avoid bumping into members of the family.”
In response to being asked about Prince William and Prince Harry he said: “The boys were amazing – they were very close. Close to their father, close to Queen Camilla – there was a lot of fun and humour. The first time I met William we shook hands. He’s kind of how you would imagine him, a little bit serious but down to earth. I asked him what I should call him as I didn’t know how to address him and I remember he said ‘I’m William’ – he was lovely.
“When I first met Harry on the other hand – I was in the kitchen and a water balloon got thrown towards me and that was Harry. He reminded me a little bit of Prince Philip and the late Queen because the Queen also had an amazing sense of humour and did things that completely caught you off guard.”
The Royal Butler: My Remarkable Life of Royal Service is available now from Amazon.
