Every one a command performance

AFTER vacuuming, we always brush all the footmarks off the carpets to make them look nice," explains Linda Last, a head housemaid at Buckingham Palace, as she straps her backpack cleaner around her waist.

Ms Last is responsible for 25 maids who clean and service the rooms and offices in the Belgian Suite, and is one of 400 permanent staff who work behind the scenes at the Palace.

In summer, when the state rooms are open to the public, an extra 180 staff are brought in.

Like all staff, Last has signed a confidentiality undertaking, and she lives in the Royal Mews with her husband, who is the Queen's head chauffeur.

"If there is a lunch, we will prepare the Eighteenth Century Room and a cloakroom.

One of us always has to stand outside the cloakroom in case one of the ladies needs assistance," says Last.

For a state visit, all the rooms have to be set up with glasses, Malvern water, salves and toiletries.

"When we had the Chinese state visit last year, the president covered the mirrors in the Orleans Room because of feng shui," she recalls, adding that a card with the names of the maid, valet and footman is placed in each room when guests stay.

Like other key staff, Last spends part of the year travelling with the Queen, either to Sandringham, Windsor Castle, Balmoral or overseas.

Meanwhile, travelling yeoman Nigel McEvoy, 33, is responsible for organising the movement of staff and equipment.

Standing in the back of a van by the Side Door of the Palace, he is helping a group of soldiers unload suits, freezer boxes, bags and saucepans. The van has just returned from Windsor Castle where the Queen was in residence.

"I have to arrange travel for chefs, housemaids, butlers, pages and anyone who needs to accompany the Queen," he says.

"Buses, trains, aeroplanes, automobiles, you name it, we deal with it.

Balmoral is a logistical nightmare because it's an hour's drive from Aberdeen, and in the middle of the Highlands," he says.

McEvoy, who joined the Palace as a footman 14 years ago, is in charge of a team of 15 footmen.

"When the Queen travels overseas, I have to take personal belongings and luggage from a room at the Palace and have them delivered to a government house or hotel.

"To do the job, you have to be well organised with good man- management skills, but most of all you need a lot of common sense."

As an administrator in F Branch, Iona Walker, 28, is responsible for buying all the food for the Royal Family and staff at the Palace and other Royal residences.

Each year, 50,000 people attend banquets, lunches, dinners, receptions and garden parties at the Palace.

On the function-tracking board on the wall of her office are listed a variety of events, including the Duke of Edinburgh's 80th birthday last month, the Trooping the Colour and the Eton boys strawberry tea party.

"A menu is sent to one of the members of the Royal Family and they tell us what they want. Once a menu has been chosen, all our recipes and ingredients are entered on a computer," says Walker.

"A printout goes to the chef who tells us what he needs for the particular function, and we contact the suppliers.

"F Branch never closes because we're always feeding people," adds Walker, who joined the Palace after completing a degree in hotel and catering management.

Functions range from dinner parties for 10 to a state banquet for 800.

For the state banquet at Windsor Castle in June for the South African president, Walker had to order, among other things, 140 guinea fowl, 100kg of broad beans and 16kg of raspberries.

Last year's diplomatic reception buffet supper included 280 pints of double cream, 74kg of monkfish and 74kg of turbot fillet.

Putting down his chisel, furniture conservator Richard Thompson, 39, says he never worries that the items he handles from the Royal Collection might be worth six-figure sums.

"These are not museum objects. They are part of a working collection. All the furniture in the Palace can be used. A chair is to be sat on, unlike at the V&A where it would be roped off.

"I'm working on a New Zealand cabinet. It has shrinkage problems. Central heating is often a cause of this. When timber doesn't have room for shrinkage, it will split," says Thompson.

"We brought puriri wood from New Zealand. We wear white gloves to handle gilt wood because moisture on the hands can take off gold.

"It's not a job you go into for the money. People here have the kind of passion Arthur Negus had. The reason we all stay is because we're working with one of the finest collections in the world."

If you've travelled on a bus along Grosvenor Place, you may have glimpsed the gardens behind the Palace.

For deputy head gardener Kevin Cattle and his nine staff tending the 39 acres - which contain 5,000 species of plants, thousands of roses and a lake - the challenge is keeping everything perfect.

"This is Her Majesty's garden. We have a problem with leaves. As it's a walled garden, they have nowhere to go. From mid December to the end of March we have the job of gathering them up," says Cattle.

"My favourite part of the garden is the herbaceous border, which is 147m long. I love watching the different plants grow.

"It's ecologically friendly here. We recycle twigs, leaves and grass cuttings, shred them and then scatter the mulch on the rose beds.

You wouldn't think you were in the middle of London."

ROYAL HOUSEKEEPING

* Buckingham Palace contains 642 rooms and covers an area of over 45,500 square metres.

* Each day, around 300 lunches are served to staff, while the Queen receives approximately 80,000 guests for lunch each year.

* The annual number of paying visitors is currently running at 300,000.

* Buckingham Palace and the other royal palaces, such as Balmoral and Windsor, have between them 286 properties for residential use.

Copyright 2001
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.