How Buckingham Palace is the royal home that never sleeps: The milkman arrives at 3am, a special Royal Mail van brings 5,000 pieces of post and chefs cook 600 meals a day, writes BRIAN HOEY – as officials advertise job vacancies
Buckingham Palace never sleeps. It is open 24/7 and the side door, where all the staff enters and leaves, never closes.
A milk float arrives through that door at three in the morning, direct from the Royal Dairy in Windsor, where the numbers on the bottles were changed to K111R from the moment Queen Elizabeth II died.
After the milkman comes a parade of merchants selling fruit, vegetables, meat and a variety of other necessities for both the royal and household tables.
A special Royal Mail van arrives with the daily mail – up to 5,000 items each time – so that the private secretaries, who normally arrive before 7am, can go through each letter and choose which ones they want to present to His Majesty when he meets his office is at 9:30 am.
Six hundred meals are prepared every day and royal chef Mark Flanagan and his staff arrive very early.
And Brits who want to be part of feeding the royal family need to get their CV in order. Three chef positions are among ten vacancies at Palace currently open for applications.
Buckingham Palace never sleeps. It is open 24/7 and the side door, where all the staff enter and leave, never closes, writes BRIAN HOEY
A special Royal Mail van arrives with the daily mail – up to 5,000 items each time – so that the private secretaries, who normally arrive before 7am, can go through each letter and choose which ones they want to present to His Majesty when he meets his office is at 9:30 am
The king offers his staff excellent facilities, but what he does not offer is a lot of money.
Working for the Royal Family means you can easily get a better paying job outside, as one former footman discovered when he was persuaded to take a job in the United States for $75,000 a year, plus a free car for himself – and his wife.
Junior Palace staff start from around £10 per hour. But they do receive free accommodation in the palace and their meals.
Everyone who works at the Palace is entitled to a (full English) breakfast, lunch (never just lunch) and dinner and no one has to pay for a glass or two (or three) of wine.
The staff dining room is on the first floor and they all eat together, much to the dismay of certain members of the ‘old guard’ who cherished their separate, highly privileged dining rooms where liveried footmen waited for their senior colleagues.
But the time when senior staff was served by servants is long gone. It’s self-service for everyone, even the Lord Chamberlain, the man at the very top.
But a certain degree of discrimination remains, because it depends on your status where you sit and with whom. A Page of the Chamber would never dream of sharing a table with a newly arrived footman. But they may be standing next to each other with trays lined up for food.
However, there is still a Household breakfast room where members can receive external guests once a month. This beautiful room is located on the ground floor and offers a view of the garden.
Although there used to be two kitchens – one reserved for the royal family and the other for the staff – today there is only one.
That change is thanks to the late Prince Philip, who discovered that separate kitchens existed and thought it was all nonsense. He ordered them to be merged into a single operation.
Buckingham Palace Chef Mark Flanagan (left) is seen with other kitchen staff as they prepare for a reception to mark the launch of the UK-India Year of Culture, 2017
Charles III reads cards and messages sent by well-wishers at Buckingham Palace following his cancer diagnosis
An Argos van outside Buckingham Palace, December 2004
Buckingham Palace kitchen staff preparing food, 2000
Buckingham Palace chef Mark Flanagan shows off his array of copper pans in the kitchen
The men guarding the entrance gates to the palace are officers from the ‘A’ Division of the Metropolitan Police.
Technically, they are not members of the Royal Family, even though some spend most of their careers in the Palace.
They have their own separate dining room in a complex on the palace grounds.
All unmarried footmen and maids are required to live in. Their accommodation is on the top floor, with the women in a corner and the men as far away as possible.
Newcomers are given rooms at the back and move to the front as they move up the career ladder.
None of the staff rooms have their own bathroom, so early in the morning there is usually a rush to the bathroom.
A favorite joke is to convince newcomers that if they want to be accepted into the household, they must run naked through the halls and through the women’s quarters.
King Charles III, accompanied by the Princess Royal, presents the new Sovereign’s Standard to The Blues and Royals at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, June 2023
Staff sort letters sent to Queen Elizabeth II after her Diamond Jubilee in 2012
Palace staff carry tablecloths to the royal tea tent in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, 2001
A photo from the year 2000 showing an employee sorting letters in the mailroom
Buckingham Palace is the most famous royal residence in the world
A cleaner hard at work before staff arrive at one of the many desks in a Buckingham Palace office, 2000
Edward Griffiths, then Deputy Master of the Household, walks through the Buckingham Palace photo gallery, 2011
Most first-time buyers fall for this, only to find that when they return to their own room, the door is locked.
Some women join in on the prank and take photos that are then distributed.
When Prince Andrew was young, he reportedly enjoyed showing some photos to his friends.
So, cruel initiation aside, there’s plenty to enjoy while working at Buckingham Palace (or Windsor Castle).