One's family is barking (and not just the corgis): The bizarre quirks of the royals revealed



Kate Middleton’s parents were this week revealed to have been guests at a Balmoral shooting party — a clear sign they’re being introduced to the royal habits in preparation for their daughter’s expected marriage to Prince William.



So, what’s life like behind palace doors? A fascinating new book reveals many of those quirks, such as the Queen’s hatred of duvets and why maids have to walk backwards while vacuuming . . .







Loo seats and loafers

Prince Charles won’t travel anywhere without his own white leather lavatory seat.

The Queen doesn’t like her staff to wear waistcoats, brown suits or loafers. But her pet-hate is clip-on bow-ties which she can spot at 20 paces.



Party time: The royals enjoy a celebration or two

Princess Anne hates to be driven and ­normally insists on taking the wheel herself. Knowing she doesn’t like small-talk, her ­protection officers ensure a good collection of CDs of her favourite music — never classical — is available before they set off.



At night, the Queen snuggles under woollen blankets and linen sheets — which she prefers to duvets. Her sheets are 6in longer than Prince Philip’s, as she likes a longer ‘turn-back’.



Both the Queen and Philip dislike long sermons, so clergymen are warned to keep them to less than 12 minutes long. Philip is reported to have once said that ‘the soul cannot absorb what the posterior cannot tolerate’.



A present danger



When the Queen and Philip got married, they were given 1,347 gifts — including 100 pairs of nylon stockings, Purdey guns, a racehorse and a new-fangled electric food mixer that none of their chefs knew how to operate. Some of the presents (still in perfect condition) are stored in an air-conditioned building in Windsor Home Park.



Every year, the Queen receives hundreds of boxes of chocolates. She never eats them. In fact, any food or drink given to a royal is immediately destroyed because of the possibility that it might contain poison.



Eat Up!



Guests are well-advised to eat as quickly as possible because it is ­protocol for waiters to start removing plates as soon as Prince Philip, a notoriously fast eater, has finished.

What’s five across?

Although the Queen enjoys crosswords, she refuses to use a thesaurus because she thinks it would be cheating.

At the Royal Opera House in ­Covent Garden, the Royal Box is reserved for the exclusive use of the Royal Family — with a strict pecking order for those entitled to make use of it. The Queen is number one, but she never goes privately to the opera, so it’s usually bagged by the Prince of Wales. When he attends, Clarence House footmen set up supper in the adjoining private dining-room. The food and wine are brought from the Prince’s own kitchens, as is his ­crystal glassware, china and silverware.

The Queen prefers the radio to television, with BBC Radio Four said to be her favourite station. There are Roberts radios on her bedside table at all her residences.



Royal snifters



The Queen’s favourite drink is gin and Dubonnet (two-thirds gin to one-third Dubonnet) with ice added. But she doesn’t like the sound of ice cubes banging against each other, so Philip invented a clever device that turns them into tiny ice balls that rub gently together.



When dining together, the Queen and Philip drink sweet German wine. He also enjoys a glass or two of Double ­Diamond beer (which, although it hasn’t been on sale to the public for years, is still available to the Ind Coop brewery’s royal fan).



Princess Anne is teetotal — drinking orange juice or Coke at state functions.



Charles prefers fish to meat. ­Nothing containing nuts is allowed on his table and he doesn’t care for chocolate puddings.



As for her cuppa, the Queen likes a special blend made by R. Twining & Company with milk but no sugar; she uses a sweetener instead. Her husband prefers coffee, made by the Savoy Hotel coffee department.



The post code

More than 1,000 letters a week addressed to the Queen are handled by its own post office at Buckingham Palace. Every one is opened by staff, apart from those envelopes on which the senders have put their own initials in the bottom left ­corner. These are given to the Queen to open herself because the ‘code’ is the recognised way her close friends correspond with her.



All letters from children and the elderly are replied to by ladies-in-waiting with a personal message, whereas more general letters receive a more formal reply or are passed to the appropriate government department.



Staff room

The Queen has about 330 full-time staff at her residences and a further 250 honorary and part-timers.

All the housemaids (there are 26 alone at Buckingham ­Palace) have to walk backwards when vacuuming, in order to avoid leaving footmarks on the carpets.



Footmen must be about 5ft 9in tall and have 36in chests because they must be able to fit the existing uniforms, which cost as much as £2,000 each. Some of them date back more than 100 years to the reign of King Edward VII.



One valet was once rebuked when he asked his royal employer which tie he should get out for him to wear — only to be told: ‘You choose! That’s what I pay you for.’



Easy rider



TO THE BUNKER

■ There’s a subterranean passage from the palace that can be used to evacuate the Royal Family in any emergency. It opens onto the ­Piccadilly Underground line, which connects directly with Heathrow Airport. A reinforced and fully-equipped bunker in the basement is said to be ­capable of withstanding a nuclear attack.

■ A swimming pool (where Philip does daily laps) is located at the rear of the palace. Staff are permitted to use the pool, but have to get out immediately if a royal arrives — unless invited to stay.

■ To ensure the palace keeps a unified appearance, none of the front windows is ever opened.

■ No monarch has ever ­particularly liked Buckingham Palace. Edward VII detested it. George V said: ‘It’s just a house; Sandringham is a home . . .’ Edward VIII stayed away as much as he could. The Queen has always said that Windsor ­Castle is her favourite home.

The Queen’s seven State limousines — five Rolls-Royces and two Daimlers — are all painted maroon. Each contains fluorescent lights, a clock and a CD player, but no cocktail cabinet. The rear seats are 4in higher than normal (to allow the royal passengers to be seen better by the public), and the carpet and lambs’ wool rugs are pale blue.



As Princess Elizabeth, the Queen served in 1945 as an officer in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS), working in transport. She claims she can still change a carburettor on a three-ton lorry.



Take a bow

Protocol dictates that if Prince Philip is in Buckingham Palace and his children want to see him, their private secretary must ask his ­private secretary if it’s convenient for him to receive them. If the answer is ‘yes’, an appointment will be made and entered in the diary. Only then is it all right to go to Philip’s rooms on the first floor, where they’ll be announced with the words: ‘Your Royal Highness, His/Her Royal Highness, the . . .’



Nannies taught Princes William and Harry how to bow before they’d even learned to walk.

A day in the life

Every morning at 9am, the Queen’s Piper, dressed in full ­Highland uniform, marches along the terrace beneath Her Majesty’s window for 15 minutes, playing Scottish military tunes on the bagpipes. He follows her from house to house — except Sandringham, the only royal residence where she has the possibility of a lie-in.



Whereas the doctor, opticians, pedicurists and hairdressers all go to the Queen to give her treatment, she travels to Harley Street for dental appointments.



Philip has a fully-equipped barber’s chair above his private apartments in Buckingham Palace, and a hairdresser visits once a week.



Every day after ‘luncheon’ (she thinks the word ‘lunch’ is vulgar) the Queen takes a walk in Buckingham Palace gardens. It’s an ­unwritten rule that staff remain out of sight as she likes to be alone, considering this to be her ‘thinking time’.



B&B Windsor

HM BAT CATCHER

■ At Balmoral, the Queen bizarrely enjoys trying to catch bats that haunt the upper reaches of the great hall. With the help of a footman, she uses a large net attached to a long pole. The bats, which are a protected species, are then released, returning night after night. The Queen then repeats the exercise the next day.

■ Visitors who try to get into her good books by patting her corgis (of which she has up to seven at any time) are sharply told: ‘Don’t do that, they don’t like it!’ What she really means is she doesn’t like it.

The Household don’t regard the dogs with quite the same affection. Because the corgis don’t seem to be totally housetrained, staff have to carry a supply of soda water and blotting paper to deal with the consequences.

■ The royals are often given unusual animals as gifts, particularly on overseas visits. These have included tortoises, sloths, beavers and, during a visit to Gambia, an ­elephant and a crocodile (which had to be kept in the Queen’s private secretary’s tin bath for the duration of the trip).

The Duke of Edinburgh once received two pygmy hippo­potamuses and Princess Anne was given a three-month-old brown Syrian bear named Nikki, who was given a permanent home in Regent’s Park Zoo.

When the Court moves to Windsor in April, the Queen traditionally invites about a dozen guests, with their spouses (but not partners of the same sex), to join her and Prince Philip for a stay that includes dinner, bed and breakfast.



Guests arrive in the early evening and are assigned a maid and valet for the duration of their visit. Overnight bags are unpacked and, if necessary, clothes are pressed and sponged. Guests then meet their royal hostess for drinks. After ­dinner, she conducts them to the Royal Library, for a special exhibition arranged with the guests’ particular interests in mind. For example, literary figures may be shown a first edition of a Charles Dickens novel or a military man might see some rare examples of old medals and war maps.

At the end of the evening, the Queen and Philip say goodbye — for they never join their guests for breakfast the next day.



Festive formalities

Recipients of Christmas cards from the Queen can work out their status by her signature. For cousins such as the Gloucesters and Kents, she signs herself ­‘Lilibet’ (her childhood nickname). Politicians get a formal ‘Elizabeth R’. Close friends, such as Countess Mountbatten, receive a card bearing the name ‘Elizabeth’ without the ‘R’ (for Regina).

And those who just scrape on to the card list, including former senior members of the Royal Household, usually get a stamped signature.



In the run-up to December 25, family members are told to arrive at Sandringham in strict order — so Charles, the Duchess of Cornwall, Prince William and Prince Harry are always the last to turn up.



Royal Christmas presents are traditionally exchanged at teatime on Christmas Eve. This is because the Queen still regards Christmas as a religious festival, so she likes to reserve the ­morning of December 25 for church.



As for presents, there’s a strict rule that they should be a ‘joke gift’ – the cheaper the better.



Numerous lunches are served on Christmas Day. First, the ­junior staff have theirs at 11am, then the senior footmen sit down an hour later, followed by the Royal Family at 1.15pm. The ­junior kitchen staff eat their lunch at 2.15pm; next come the senior footmen; then the butlers. The royal chef is the last to have lunch — at around 4pm.



After dinner on Christmas evening — which is very formal, with the men in black tie and the ladies in long evening gowns and diamond tiaras — the family plays charades until midnight and nobody is permitted to go to bed until the Queen retires.



The Queen pays no attention to the tradition of Twelfth Night — she insists on keeping the Christmas decorations up until February.



■ Extracted from We Are Amused: A Royal Miscellany by Brian Hoey, published by JR Books on November 15 at

£14.99. © Brian Hoey 2010. To order a copy (p&p free), call 0845 155 0720.