The Queen’s fire-poker made the news this week after allegations of ‘steamy trysts’ with a chambermaid. This lifted the lid on life in a realm replete with footmen and flag sergeants

Light my fire: does the Queen really need a 'fendersmith'?

Name: Fendersmith.

AKA: Gary Jones.

Appearance: Spick and span.

Age: 54.

So this guy is a Victorian pickpocket? No. That’s a fingersmith. Jones is a fendersmith, which means he cleans and maintains fireplaces, and builds and tends the fires in them.

That’s handy. I should bring a fendersmith when I go camping. I think they more often specialise in palaces.

Crikey. That’s quite niche. Yes. There aren’t many fendersmiths around these days. It is basically just Windsor Castle that still employs one. Jones has held the job since June 1984, when he took over the post from his dad, Robert.

So he’s the Queen’s poker? There’s no need to be crude. Although, um, Jones has been in the news for allegedly engaging in what some newspapers like to call “steamy trysts” with a chambermaid, Joanne Ancell.

They’re royal servants. What would you expect? Life must be one long, costumed romance novel. Probably. It’s certainly an unusual existence.

Do you know much about working in the royal household? A fair bit. They explain it all on their jobs website.

Really? Oh yes. For example, there is Ross, who is a “liveried helper”.

A what now? It means he gets up at 5.30am, cleans stables and tack, and “cares for some of the most photographed horses in the world”.

He’s a horse servant? A costumed horse servant, yes. Or there is Daniel, who began as a trainee footman.

After gaining his butlering vocational qualification, Daniel became a senior footman, and is now a deputy sergeant footman.

Wow. He must give the best pedicure ever. It has actually got very little to do with feet. Mainly, he is a waiter at big parties. Then there is the flag sergeant, L/Sgt Patrick Nelson.

What does he do? Flag stuff. And, of course, there is the piper to the sovereign, Pipe Maj Scott Methven. He is basically a human alarm clock, who wakes the Queen up at 9am with 15 minutes of bagpiping outside her window.

That sounds brutal. Does he have a snooze function? Look, I realise this all sounds rather silly, but the royal household is a big organisation, so there is a lot of work to do. The clockmaker at Windsor got repetitive strain injury from endlessly winding hundreds of mechanisms.

Ouch. Meanwhile, Jones the fendersmith has more than 300 fireplaces to keep blazing.

Even in the summer? Maybe he does the royal barbecues.

Do say: “The ideal candidate will be a team player who won’t ask how much the British public has to pay for all this.”

Don’t say: “Staff may participate in three steamy trysts a week, on a pro-rata basis.”