Dry martinis, jam puffs, chipolatas and giggling at Fawlty Towers... my privileged life as Queen Mum’s Scots tour guide
Former aide shares his treasured memories of the much-loved Royal
SHELTERING from a passing shower in a small shed, the Queen Mother threw open the lid of her wicker basket. After dishing out the chipolatas she handed out freshly baked jam puffs and encouraged her guests – many of them members of her staff – to add lashings of cream.
For Major John Perkins, the recollection of a joy-filled royal picnic is only one of many treasured memories from the time that he spent with his ‘dear friend’ at her Highland bolthole.
Thought to be the oldest tour guide in Britain, Major Perkins – known to the Queen Mum affectionately as ‘Johnny’ – has spent every summer for the past two decades showing visitors around the Castle of Mey.
Yet, unlike his fellow guides, the 91-yearold’s knowledge of the Caithness pile comes from his personal experiences as a guest of and assistant to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.
Major Perkins has dedicated his final years to keeping alive the Queen Mother’s spirit in the only home she ever truly owned. Coronavirus restrictions meant he was unable to make the 550-mile trip from his home in Shrewsbury to the north of Scotland for the first time this year. But, in an exclusive interview, he has shared some of his most cherished stories of the ‘real’
She was tremendous fun with the most wonderful sense of humour
Queen Mother – including dry martinis, being surrounded by midges, tiring out her newest corgi and watching Dad’s Army together after dinner.
The Major, whose grandfather, Colonel Arthur Morse was a close friend of
King George VI, has also shared previously unseen photographs of the popular Royal.
‘I am lucky to have known the Castle of Mey as a living object, as the beloved Scottish home of the Queen Mother,’ Major Perkins disclosed last week.
‘I spent many summers there as both a guest of the Queen Mother and an assistant to her and I have so many happy memories of the place – memories that help me paint an honest picture of what it was like before it was a visitor attraction.
‘My grandparents were great friends of the Duke and Duchess of York before they became King and Queen. My grandfather and the Duke would go shooting together.
‘I met them socially a number of times from a young age and was invited to spend time at the Castle of Mey with my family after the King’s death.’
He added: ‘My name was later put forward to be an assistant at the castle, although I felt more like a guest, and I spent many summers there. The Castle of Mey meant so very much to the Queen Mother. It brought her happiness after the death of her husband and she felt at home there.
‘I remain so grateful to Her Majesty for the kindness that she showed me over the years and I wanted to repay that the best way that I could.
‘I try, in a respectful way, to keep her memory alive and tell visitors what each room was like when she lived there, where she liked to sit and what she liked to do.’
The Castle of Mey, six miles west of John O’Groats, was the property of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother from 1952 until 1996, when she gifted it to the Queen Elizabeth Castle of Mey Trust, which is today overseen by the Prince’s Foundation.
Originally constructed in 1566, it was in a semi-derelict state when the Queen Mother purchased it following the death of King George VI but she set about restoring it to its former glory and it became her much-loved holiday home.
Major Perkins, who served with the Royal Horse Artillery, was asked by the Trust to return to the castle as a tour guide when it opened to the public in 2002, the year of the Queen Mother’s death, aged 101.
To the delight of visitors from around the world, Major Perkins’s tours include first-hand accounts of life inside the castle walls.
He said: ‘The Queen Mother was tremendous fun with the most wonderful sense of humour.
‘She had a way of making everyone she spoke to feel like they were the only person in the room. I like to be able to portray that to the visitors. She had a real warmth of friendship and was like everybody’s grandmother – you just wanted to give her a hug.
‘Her sense of duty was also absolutely paramount. She took her role very seriously. She didn’t, however, feel she was important enough for her Royal guards and would say, “no one cares enough about me for me to need them”.’
Widowed, and with just a handful of family visits, the Queen Mother treated her household like guests, Major Perkins said.
‘Every lunch was a picnic, whatever the weather. The Queen Mother much preferred to eat lunch outdoors, where it was more informal and fun and she could enjoy the spectacular Caithness scenery. If it rained we would just go into a bothy or a shed.
‘The picnics would be enjoyed by the whole household. Myself, the ladies-in-waiting, the equerry and anyone else who happened to be there at the time.
‘There were always chipolata sausages, although half of them would be given to the dogs, and a selection of sandwiches too. But the
Queen Mother’s favourite bit of the picnic was always the jam puffs, made fresh by the chef at the castle. We would take the top off them and add lashings of cream.
‘I remember the Queen Mother loved to be the one to unpack the picnic basket but, after a big lunch, was somewhat less fond of packing it all away again. Mealtimes took up a great deal of each day, but they were rarely formal.’
Major Perkins added: ‘It felt like we were always eating. We would have afternoon tea around 4pm and Her Majesty would always put the water in the kettle herself and pour the tea for everyone. She was not one for just sitting in her chair and being served.
‘I remember there was always a wonderful chocolate cake and scones we would share. We would sit around a round table in the hall, and it was quite informal.’
After tea the Queen Mother would move onto something a little stronger, Major Perkins recalled.
‘After tea everyone would go upstairs to change for dinner and then go outside for a glass of something. The Queen Mother
enjoyed a dry martini, her drink of choice, on one of the benches outside but she was sometimes driven inside by the midges.
‘A few times we would have a drink and wave to the Royal Yacht as it left. The crew would send up a few small fireworks for us to watch.
‘The Queen Mother would sit at the head of the table for dinner, which began around 8.30pm, and we would wait to see if she turned to talk to the person on her left or right, before doing the same. She hated the idea of anyone being left out, without someone to talk to.
‘She liked chicken and egg dishes at dinner but ate very little. She didn’t have a big appetite but was keen that everyone else had a good meal.’
Rather than retiring to her private quarters alone, the Queen Mother preferred to watch television in a group. The Major said: ‘The castle was not huge in comparison to other royal residences but she had her own private sitting room. It was there that she would reply to her many letters during the day and at night she often invited us down to watch her favourite television programmes with her.
‘She adored Dad’s Army and Fawlty Towers and found them so funny. We all had a laugh together watching them.’
Active into her later years, Major Perkins would be asked to accompany the Queen Mother on walks to the beach and around the gardens.
‘She didn’t like to be thought of as old’, he said. ‘There was a lift up to where her bedroom was in the castle but she didn’t once use it.
‘She would laugh and say, “Oh, let old so and so use it instead”, despite most of us being at least 30 years her junior.’
She also loved to walk with her corgis – although one young pup’s energy levels got the better of her.
Major Perkins recalled: ‘The Queen Mother was a huge lover of animals, particularly dogs.
‘Her corgis went everywhere with her and she would remind me to bring up my black Labradors each year. She adored them.
‘She used to joke that she preferred them to her own dogs as, unlike the little corgis, the Labs were tall enough to lay their heads on her lap to be petted. She loved to pet them of an evening.’
He added: ‘I remember one year she had a new corgi puppy, Monty. He was full of energy.
‘At dinner one night Her Majesty told me that Monty was “getting tired of old ladies”, knowing fine well we might wonder if she was referring to herself, when in fact it was her older female dogs.
‘She asked if I could take Monty out to “chase bunnies” with my Labrador, Dido, the following day to tire him out.
‘I didn’t have the heart to tell her that my dogs were trained not to chase anything.
‘I duly took the dogs to Dunnet Head and they must have run around with each other for two solid hours.
‘When we returned the Queen Mother laughed that she had never seen Monty so still.
‘He slept for the rest of the day and from that day on Monty would come with us for his exercise.’
Major Perkins has continued to bring his much-loved Labradors to the Castle of Mey during his years as a guide.
However, he was devastated when his only remaining dog, Millie-Mey, died in April.
He was dealt a further blow when the coronavirus pandemic meant the castle had to remain closed to the public and his annual working holiday was cancelled.
Major Perkins said: ‘I’ve really missed the Castle of Mey this year. It has been strange not to see everyone and breathe in the lovely Scottish air.
‘However, I am looking forward to resuming my tour guide role next year and I am keen to keep going until someone finally tells me I’m too old or that I’m forgetting things.
‘It’s a tiring job, as you are always walking and talking – and you have a lot of questions to answer – but I love it very much.
‘I lived on the Norfolk coast until I moved to Shrewsbury a couple of years ago, which means the drive to Mey would take me more than 15 hours in total.
‘The Queen Mother used to tease me that I lived closer to Prague than Caithness. It’s certainly a long commute but it’s always been worth every minute.’
She hated the idea of anyone being left out, without someone to talk to