Pedantic Charles
injure her corgis. To keep from having to place her purse on the floor, the queen also carries a small white suction cup with a hook on it. When the occasion arises, she sticks the suction cup to the underside of a table and hangs her purse from it. “Very handy, don’t you think?” she said to one startled guest at a luncheon in Yorkshire. Almost as revealing is what she doesn’t carry in her purse: credit cards, car keys, cash or a passport – she’s never required one because, as the queen, she issues Despite his love of gritty country pursuits such as gardening and riding, Charles is a man of refined tastes who spends well over £80 000 (R1,4 million) annually on his wardrobe. His unwavering conviction about how even the smallest things should be done often has servants scrambling. Lunch must be served precisely at 12 pm on plates marked with the Prince of Wales crest. A cup and saucer are to be placed to the right with a silver spoon pointing outwards at a 25-degree angle. The royal toast is always served on a silver rack – never on a plate – with three balls of butter (no more, no less) chilled in a small dish.
Even if His Highness merely asks for a cold drink, staffers know they’re in trouble if he looks into his glass and scowls at what he sees. “He preferred round pieces of ice,” a former valet said, “because he thought the angles made regular cubes ‘too noisy’. We heard that quite a lot.”
His former valet Michael Fawcett’s duties include squeezing the toothpaste from a silver dispenser bearing the Prince of Wales crest onto the Prince’s toothbrush, lathering his shaving brush, slipping on and tying the Prince’s shoes, zipping up the royal fly, and even holding the specimen bottle while the prince gives a urine sample during regular check-ups.
When Charles travels he takes along his own hand towels, a cushioned toilet seat and toilet paper embroidered with the Prince of Wales crest.
There are even written instructions to be passed on to hotel chefs stipulating the “dimensions and texture” of royal sandwiches.
Prince Charles’ childhood teddy bear, which always resides in a place of honour amid the pillows on his canopied four-poster, is also packed up for every trip and then taken out to be tucked un-