Hot stuff! Queen’s chief fireplace lighter and the Windsor chambermaid
THE Queen’s chief fireplace lighter has been having an affair with a married chambermaid at Windsor Castle, it was claimed yesterday.
Gary Jones, 54, the Royal Household’s fendersmith for almost 35 years, is said to have started a relationship with mother-of-two Joanne Ancell, 44.
The lovers are reported to have used the castle’s grand State Dining Room, Jubilee Room, Footman’s Room and visitors’ welfare flat for their trysts.
Mr Jones and Mrs Ancell – who is said to have used a secret phone to hide her affair from her family – met at work and started seeing each other romantically towards the end of 2017. It was eight months before the affair was exposed. Mrs Ancell left her husband of more than ten years and moved out of the family home in Staines, Surrey, in July.
The chambermaid, who has changed her Facebook relationship status to ‘ separated’, is now believed to be living with Mr Jones in his grace-and-favour home on Windsor’s Frogmore Estate, near where Prince Harry and Meghan will live. A friend said: ‘Jo carried on the affair for months before her husband found out … The two of them were carrying on around the castle and now she’s moved in with him. She’s the Queen’s neighbour now.’
‘Everyone at the castle knows about this,’ a source told The Sun. ‘Gary’s not just the Queen’s fendersmith, he waters her garden and tends to her plants. He even sits and watches TV with the Queen.
‘Jo worked on Harry’s and Eugenie’s weddings and has met and spoken to all of the Royal Family, handing out champagne and canapes. She’s also done Royal Ascot and fed the Queen. She gets a present every Christmas from the Queen and letters from Buckingham Palace. They look after her. She cleans but also works on events at the castle.’
Mr Jones took over the role of fendersmith from his father Robert in June 1984.
He describes his professional duties as to ‘repair and clean the fenders and fireplaces in Windsor Castle’ on an online profile.
He was awarded the Royal Victorian Order for his service in the 2006 New Year’s Honours. Mr Jones, who grew up in Windsor and describes himself online as ‘separated’, was previously a groundsman at St George’s Chapel, where Harry and Meghan married in May.
Mrs Ancell, who is originally from Wraysbury, Berkshire, and reportedly earns £800 a month, previously worked for a number of years as a housemaid for Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York.
Senior Windsor Castle officials are said to be aware of the romance. A royal spokesman said: ‘We don’t comment on staff members.’