SOPHIA MONEY- COUTTS MODERN MANNERS Rich or poor, manners cost nothing

The relationship between household staff and employers isn’t as ‘us-and-them’ as believed, but it should still pay to be polite

Acouple of months ago, I was told a story about the Duchess of Sussex and her tights. Or pantyhose, as the Duchess might call them. A staff member at Kensington Palace apparently suggested they buy her tights from Marks & Spencer, but she allegedly insisted on getting them from the more upmarket Wolford instead. The phrase “garbage patch” was said to be used in reference to M&S, but that un-duchessy phrase is probably an exaggeration, since she has stepped out in a black M&S jersey before.

Cut to last week, when a couple of pesky tabloids reported that three of the Duke and Duchess’s team have recently quit.

Now, I have no doubt whatsoever that there are entirely innocent reasons for their departures, but it got me thinking about the time when I was at Tatler and we tried to write a tongue-in-cheek piece headlined “How to treat the staff ”.

I can’t quite remember but suspect it was full of immensely useless tips such as “try not to sleep with the butler”, and perhaps for this reason, and possibly because it sounded much too grand, too Marie Antoinette, the piece didn’t run.

Talking of “staff ” these days does sound preposterous, and yet you, esteemed Sunday Telegraph reader, might have a cleaner, or a nanny. Perhaps a gardener. I have a lovely cleaner who comes once a week to hoover up the spiders I can’t face and, when I leave the house yet again without my wallet, I often wish I had a nanny, but they are too expensive.

But you would be extremely careful about how you talk to your cleaner or gardener. You would certainly never talk down to them, because it isn’t 1421 and they are not a lackey.

I saw this countless times while working for the magazine, crisscrossing the country from castle to castle in my important role as “interviewer of dukes”. In proper households, staff are not downtrodden underlings as people imagine. They are treated like members of the family, and in some cases prized much higher than that.

Think about Jeeves – Bertie Wooster might have disobeyed him by wearing a natty hat that Jeeves disapproved of, but Bertie would sooner have married Honoria Glossop than upbraid his valet.

Of the dozens of butlers I came across – many Buckingham Palacetrained – they were largely more capable than their employers but paid properly and looked after because both sides understood the other. Old nannies still often retire and are cared for by the family (as happened in Brideshead and seems to be the case in the Rees-mogg household). My great-aunt had a cleaner called Moira who was still visiting her aged 80, by which point Moira was largely just rearranging the dust. But it was a long-standing relationship that mattered to them both.

Of course it’s an easier relationship to understand for those like dukes or princes who have been brought up in castles, surrounded by staff, than for those who haven’t grown up in such a world.

And I’m not saying that employers aren’t sometimes high-handed and spoilt. The Prince of Wales supposedly insists that his shoelaces are ironed every morning and toothpaste is squeezed on to his toothbrush for him (not that we believe such gossip, of course). But as with any job, it should be a relationship of mutual respect. And if not, you’re absolutely right to pack your bags and get out.

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