It’s approaching six decades since schoolboy Paul Burrell stood at the railings of Buckingham Palace and told his bemused father he was going to work there one day.
A few years later, the then 18-year-old, whose latest book is aptly titled The Royal Insider, joined the staff of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II as a footman. Eleven years on, he was appointed butler to the Prince and Princess of Wales, watching at first hand the breakdown of their marriage, then becoming Diana’s confidant, loyal servant and travel companion until his final personal duty to her on August 31, 1997, at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.
Paul, who lives in Peckforton with his husband, Graham Cooper, will be headline speaker at Northwich LitFest, a date that sold out almost as soon as it was announced. He is open to all questions, from his relationship with the Queen: ‘It was very personal and intimate. She was my surrogate mother.’ To his feelings for Diana. ‘I loved her very much. I know we are not supposed to say that about royal princesses but I think it’s an exception in my circumstances.’ His thoughts on Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor: ‘Andrew has brought the Royal Family to its knees. We could see an Andrew in prison.’ And his view of Queen Camilla: ‘Camilla is not my Queen because I have not forgotten who the real Queen should have been.’
‘Coop will come to the LitFest, although he has heard me a thousand times before. I am always nervous, because I am not a member of the Royal Family, I am a servant and people will say a servant should know their place; they should speak when spoken to,’ he says.
‘My answer to that is: how can I remain silent after so much has been said and done, not only to myself but to the people I love and cared about? Eventually, you have to stand up and be counted. What do you think Diana would say to me if I stayed quiet? She would say: “Get off your backside and do something about this. You know the truth.”’
Paul Burrell’s journey from a Coronation Street-style terrace in Derbyshire to the Royal palaces and Prince Charles’s private residence, Highgrove, is told in his memoir, A Royal Duty (2003) and now in The Royal Insider, My Life with the Queen, the King and Princess Diana, the book he said he would not publish until after the death of Queen Elizabeth. ‘I told her that out of my respect for her I would not talk about my duty to her until she passed,’ he says.
His writing, media and TV appearances (three times in versions of I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!) have made him a public figure despite his protestations that he is not a celebrity. His candid accounts of what he describes as the rollercoaster lives of the Royals and his willingness to comment on subjects from the arrest of the former Prince Andrew, to the marriage of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, to the progression of Camilla Parker-Bowles to Duchess of Cornwall, Queen Consort and now Queen of the United Kingdom, have won him both admirers and critics.
‘I am controversial,’ he says. ‘Some people like me and some people don’t, I understand that – it’s the way of the world. Princess Diana wasn’t popular with everyone and she knew it. She taught me a great lesson in life. She said not to worry about my reputation, because that’s what people think you are, but your character is who you are. Once people sit down and listen to how I see things, what I say and more importantly, what I don’t say, they can come out with a balanced judgement.’
The Northwich LitFest date – June 6, at the Davenham Players Theatre – falls on Paul’s 68th birthday. ‘I remember both the Queen and Princess Diana making a fuss of me on my birthday, much to my annoyance because my job wasn’t to be celebrated, my job was to celebrate other people and to look after them. When the tables are turned, I find it very uncomfortable,’ he says.
‘I remember my 21st birthday particularly. I went to the Queen’s bedroom door at 9am, just before the piper started to play beneath her window, and waited for the little chink of door to open and for Her Majesty to feed out the nine corgis for me to take out into the garden. She stood there in her nightie and she wished me a very happy birthday, saying: “It’s a very special birthday.” I asked how on earth she knew and she replied: “I know everything.”
‘That day was a Saturday, and we were off to the Derby at Epsom. I was going with her to serve lunch in the Royal Box. She said: “You will have a glass of champagne,” and that there should be a special one for me. It was a bottle of Krug. So, on my 21st birthday, I sat in the back of the Royal Box with my colleagues, sipping Krug champagne at the Derby.
‘The Princess always spoilt me on my birthday, as I spoilt her on July 1 and made sure she had a good day. There were only three years between us. On my last birthday with her, she gave me a beautiful gold Omega. “Because you always keep my time,” she said.’
The unparalleled relationships Paul Burrell forged with the Queen and the Princess were beyond even his fanciful boyhood dreams of a life of travel and adventure, and he believes fate (and his late mother Beryl) took a hand in his becoming a Royal Insider.
He says: ‘I grew up in Grassmoor, a coalmining village in Derbyshire. Our world was very small. My ambition was to escape my black and white world of coal. I wanted adventure and I dreamt of escaping and going to far-off places,’ he says.
‘When I left school at 16, I had no focus and direction, so I went to catering college and discovered my vocation was to look after people. I thought the best way was to work in a luxury hotel. I had a part-time job at the Station Hotel, Chesterfield. One of the girls at college, who was studying housekeeping, got a job as a housemaid at Buckingham Palace and the principal said he would put me forward for an interview. Later, my family reminded me of when I was 11 or 12 and stood in front of those railings at Buckingham Palace, watching the changing of the guard and said to my dad that one day I would like to work there. I was a dreamer.
‘But I did get an interview and I walked down those red-carpeted corridors in the inner sanctum, thinking, oh my goodness,
I never knew this world existed, it really is a world of Technicolor with crimson walls, gold-framed paintings, red carpets. The interview didn’t go very well because the Master of the Household said to me: “Do you always sit down before being asked to? And you never once referred to me as Sir. I am your superior and you never respected my position.” Of course, we had a letter saying there were no openings and I thought at 17 I had blown the biggest opportunity of my lifetime, so I took a job in a hotel in Torquay. Then one day, my mother rang to say I had received another letter from Buckingham Palace, offering me a job.
‘What I didn’t realise until I was with my two brothers at Hasland Cemetery in Derbyshire, burying my mother in the year before the princess died, was that she had chosen my future for me. As the coffin was lowered, my younger brother told me that on the day the offer letter came from Buckingham Palace, another letter arrived – from Cunard, offering me a position as a steward in the world’s most famous ocean liner, the QE2.
My mother looked at the two letters, turned to my brother and said: “You must never tell Paul what I am about to do.” She put the letter from Cunard on the fire and they watched my future at sea go up in smoke. So, my mother chose my destiny and at her funeral I realised she had made the wisest choice because I would have chosen a life at sea; I wanted to go to far-off places and experience different cultures. In the end, I got to travel and all my dreams came true but I couldn’t have known that. Women shaped my life: my mother who chose my destiny, the Queen for 11 years, then Princess Diana for 10 years, and my wife, Maria.’ (They divorced in 2016 by mutual agreement after 32 years of marriage.)
‘Women kept me on course for an incredible life. Now it is men: my husband, Graham, my sons, Alex and Nick, and my grandson, Lucca, who are my focus. Life has changed dramatically since Princess Diana died.
‘When I met Coop, I had no ambition to meet a man on a train coming from London to Crewe but there he was, we were strangers on a train and he became my husband.’
Paul’s move to Highgrove to work for the Prince and Princess of Wales was, he says, another decision made by others for him.
He and Maria, a maid in the Royal Household, had already formed a bond with Princess Diana but when the Queen suggested they move to the Gloucestershire countryside to serve the Prince and Princess of Wales, Paul says he was broken-hearted.
‘I never wanted to leave the Queen. She had shaped this boy for 11 years. I had absorbed her life and everything and everyone around her like a sponge and it made me the man I was. The first person who held my newborn son, Alexander, was the Queen, not my mother, not Maria’s mother. I grew up with this family; I was an appendage. I did not want to leave and I stood there crying as I told her that.
‘She said: “Paul, you will do this for the best possible reason – your family.” We were living in the Royal Mews with Alexander, who was two, with another baby on the way, and she said she knew life could not be easy for us bringing up a family in the middle of London and that living in Gloucestershire would be idyllic.
‘She told me that one day, when she was gone, Charles and Diana would be King and Queen and that I would be doing the same thing for them as I did for her. “So, you’re not leaving me, you are just moving to one side,” she said.
‘During my service to the Queen, Diana would come to stay at the Royal residences and would always search out Maria, who eventually became her dresser. The Princess loved nothing more than going for a swim at Buckingham Palace and then telling her policeman they were going via the Burrells’ flat in the Royal Mews. She would come and give my baby his bottle or change his nappy, so I say to my now 40-year-old son: “You had no secrets from Princess Diana.”
‘Diana was already working on Maria.
I remember her coming to Balmoral with her babies and saying to Maria: “I don’t have anyone, they are all Charles’s men, he pays the wages. I would love to have someone like Paul who can look after me. I don’t have anyone I can call my own.”’
The move to a cottage in the Gloucestershire countryside in 1987 did not turn out to be as idyllic as Paul had hoped for, though, and he was warned at the outset that his new employers’ marriage was troubled. ‘The lady-in-waiting called me up to her sitting room and said to me: “You realise things aren’t all what they seem. It is my opinion that Diana will be gone in a couple of years. So are you making the right decision?”’
Paul stayed by the Princess’s side from 1987 until her death in 1997, initially at Highgrove with Prince Charles and then with Diana and the young Princes at Kensington Palace:
‘I found my position at Highgrove difficult because I was a go-between, not only for her but for Charles and Camilla. I couldn’t tell anyone about what was happening.
‘Diana did not know the details of her husband’s meetings with Camilla Parker-Bowles, so I knew more than she did. I was nervous every weekend when Diana came to Highgrove with the boys. I was careful not to fall foul of the Prince, but I was walking a tightrope. I was serving two people and it wasn’t until they decided to live apart that my life became clearer.
‘Diana said: “I’m taking Paul back to London,” and Charles said: “Paul came from my mama and I need him for the future. He knows how everything works.” But she insisted and I went with my heart; I learnt to be more of a humanitarian in lots of ways because of Diana. The Queen taught me much about life and then Diana took over the role and I learnt from her.
‘I’m not saying Prince Charles did not influence my life; he did. I’ve learnt values from him, too. But I was lucky that Diana and the Queen were the biggest influences.’
Paul’s number one best-seller, A Royal Duty, told the story of his decade as Princess Diana’s butler and confidant and in a chapter headed Goodbye, Your Royal Highness, he recalls the events of August 31, 1997.
He says: ‘On the night Diana died, I was in London waiting for her to come home. Just past midnight, Lúcia Flecha de Lima, who was the Brazilian ambassador’s wife and a great friend of the Princess, who had heard on celebrity.land that Diana had been involved in a car accident, called me to ask if I would try to contact her to make sure she was OK. I rang her private number, but it rang out. As the night unfolded, I realised I had to go back to Kensington Palace, where everyone connected to Diana came instinctively because they were worried. The news was going to Balmoral and they were relaying it to Kensington Palace. At about 2am we heard she was injured and then after the comptroller, Michael Gibbins, took a call in his office, the Princess’s personal assistant, Jackie Allen, came into the room looking ashen and said to me: “Paul, sit down, you have to listen to what I’m saying and you have to be brave. The Princess has died.” I didn’t feel any great emotion at that point because adrenaline kicked in and I said I needed to go to Paris to look after her, protect her and keep her safe.’
Paul packed a bag with the Princess’s night clothes, her perfume, makeup and photographs of William and Harry and once in Paris was met by the British ambassador, Sir Michael Jay, who took him to the British Embassy where he asked Lady Jay if he could look through her wardrobe to borrow a dress: ‘I realised Diana may not be dressed appropriately, so I chose a long, black evening gown to take to the hospital.
‘At the hospital, everything unfolded as if in slow motion. It was very emotional going into the room; my legs turned to jelly. The only other person I had seen dead was my mother and when I had kissed her, she was cold and hard, like marble. This was a totally different experience. As I held the Princess’s hand, it was soft and warm, as if she were sleeping.
It took a while to realise she was no longer here and that’s when the barriers broke and my grief kicked in.
‘Then I remembered what she had told me about being with her friend, Adrian Ward-Jackson, when he passed away from AIDS: “You know what happens at the moment, Paul – the spirit rises from the body and they stay in the room and watch what’s happening.” I was holding her hand, thinking she was in the room, watching me, so it was a very spiritual moment and a privilege to be there with her, because I loved her very much. I know we are not supposed to say that about royal princesses but I think it’s an exception in my circumstances. I did love her. I defy any man having met her not to fall in love with her because she was incredible.’
As he approaches what he describes as the autumn of his life, spent in the Cheshire countryside with his husband, Paul Burrell looks back to his extraordinary experiences as the Royal Insider and ahead to the ever-evolving face of the British monarchy.
‘We have to live with change and I have become pragmatic,’ he says. ‘Although Camilla isn’t my Queen, I realise I have to cross the bridge with Charles and Camilla to get to William and Kate, because at the end of it, Diana’s son will be King and his wife will be Queen. Then, for me, the circle will be complete. I don’t agree with a lot of things that happen today in the Royal Family, but I can’t change that, so I’ve learnt to live with it and I’ve learnt that time will pass and things will right themselves.
‘The Royal Family have always lived in a rollercoaster of emotions and crises – the highs of Royal weddings, the lows of Royal deaths and everything in between.’
Paul believes the current crisis, centred on the former Prince Andrew, has the potential to endanger the monarchy but he is determined to defend Queen Elizabeth against those who say she must have been aware of the seriousness of the allegations against her son. ‘We have to look at today’s crises through today’s lens and it doesn’t look very pretty; I honestly think the Royal Family is in great danger because they are only there as long as the people want them to be there. Andrew’s selfishness, greed and entitlement have left a very bad taste in people’s mouths and they are beginning to question whether the monarchy has longevity.
‘The Queen was aware that Andrew had problems but I would think she was unaware of the finer details and extent of those problems. People are going to ask how she could not know but the Queen wasn’t aware of everything. She lived in her own bubble.
‘In the normal world, a mother might have known all the details, but not in that world. She was above all of that. She never wanted confrontation and Prince Philip was the guardian at the gate; he kept her away from confrontation. I won’t have anyone besmirch our dear late Queen because she was a good, kind Christian woman; she was the best of the best. Her memory should not be altered.’
Paul Burrell’s books and public appearances relating his extraordinary experiences are, he says, his way of honouring the two women who helped turn his boyhood dreams into a life he could never have imagined.
‘My story is so incredible that a lot of people doubt what I say is true. I understand that because what I experienced was so remote from general life it seems like fiction. It’s not. I feel I have a responsibility, as a loyal subject, in a time when the monarchy is going through great upheaval, to give my account of events.’
Views of a Royal Insider
Princess Diana
If she had lived, Diana would have become a roving ambassador working with humanitarian causes around the world, as Tony Blair promised her. That’s what she did best.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor
Andrew has brought the Royal Family to its knees. One single man has done more damage to the Royal Family than anyone – more damage than Cromwell. I think we could see an Andrew in prison. I think Andrew’s selfishness and greediness and entitlement has left a very bad taste in people’s mouths and they are beginning to question whether the monarchy has longevity. He is the bad apple in the barrel. I’ve known him since he was a young boy and he was always obnoxious and difficult.
Queen Camilla
Camilla and Charles had a massive part in Diana’s short life; they are people who should have known better.
Camilla would never have become Queen if Diana had not died. The Queen announced that Camilla would become Queen Consort because Charles said to her if you don’t say it, people won’t accept it. After the Queen died and Charles was King, he could make any rule he wanted and Camilla was crowned the full-blooded Queen beside him in Westminster Abbey. I couldn’t watch that. I will wait patiently to, one day, cheer Catherine as our Queen.
Prince Harry
If Diana were alive today, Harry would never have married Meghan, he wouldn’t have been searching for love, he would have been happy to settle down, conform and use those lessons he learnt in life from his mother – that he was to be William’s wingman and stand by his side.
Paul Burrell
If Princess Diana could see me now, I think she would be amused that I have survived. She’d say: ‘How come you survived this family and I didn’t?’ She always said that what made me different was that I had common sense and it’s common sense that pulled me through. It’s being a lad from a coalmining village in Derbyshire that brought me through all this. Eventually, when I did get to choose, I chose something different. I chose a house in Cheshire with my husband..
Paul Burrell will be in conversation with Cheshire Life editor Joanne Goodwin on June 6 at Northwich LitFest. Events run from May 29 to June 13.
@NorthwichLitFest
Booking: eventbrite.co.uk/e/1983390292757
The evening with Paul Burrell, where he will sign copies of his new memoir, The Royal Insider: My Life with the Queen, The King and Princess Diana, is sold out, with a waiting list. If you can’t be there and have a question you would like Joanne to put to Paul, email [email protected]
The Royal Insider is published by Sphere, an imprint of Little Brown Book Group. littlebrown.co.uk
‘ Este Articulo puede contener información publicada por terceros, algunos detalles de este articulo fueron extraídos de la siguiente fuente: www.greatbritishlife.co.uk ’
