by Tom Quinn
If Billy inadvertently served an unusually small gin at lunch she might say, ‘William, do remember that when it comes to gin I have my reputation to consider.’ Billy obligingly topped her glass up.
One of Billy’s own favourite stories involved the Queen Mother discussing a lunch party with Billy and then during a long pause she said, ‘William, I wonder if we might invite Reginald to join us? It will be like St Trinian’s!’
Billy was less pleased with a remark the Queen Mother made when he had irritated her by arriving late one morning and then being in a bad mood. She always knew when he was cross because he would say a curt ‘Good morning, ma’am’, and then fall silent, in contrast to his more usual merry chatter. If he was in a really bad mood he would begin a slightly manic process of appearing to tidy various objects on the tables in the room but he was really just moving things about unnecessarily and making a great deal of noise as he did so, almost like a child trying to attract attention.
According to one version of events, the Queen Mother became increasingly irritated by Billy’s sulk, picked up a newspaper, flicked nonchalantly through it for a while and then said, ‘William, you might be interested in one of the situations vacant in today’s Times. Yes, I’m sure it’s just right for you. They are advertising two positions in Sydney.’ Others have insisted that the Queen Mother would never have said anything quite so vulgar and that the jibe actually came from one of Billy’s fellow servants.
Whoever said it, the fact remains that it was a rebuke that, like all amusing comments, would have spread quickly through the household.
It was rare for the Queen Mother to be deliberately cutting to Billy, but it happened more often than people realised. Billy always gave the impression that he and the Queen Mother were always of one mind, which was not entirely true.
The Queen Mother’s occasional sharp remarks must have reminded Billy of his own mother, which would explain why he never really took them to heart. And besides he was more than capable of delivering his own put-downs to those who irritated him. Of one gay friend he was overheard to say, ‘Oh yes, Gary is a fool and you know what they say – a fool and his morals are soon parted!’
He also occasionally got into a slightly sarcastic sparring match with the Queen Mother and she did not always get the best of it. After a particularly lengthy lunch with some of her oldest friends the Queen Mother said, ‘That really did go rather well, don’t you think, William? But perhaps we could have a little more gin next time?’
Clearly Billy had not kept her topped up quite as she would have wished. Before he could stop himself Billy snapped back, ‘Perhaps we should have it delivered by tanker?’
The Queen Mother took his remark completely in her stride, refusing to acknowledge the sarcasm. She merely said, ‘I don’t think that will be necessary, William.’
The corgis, a legendary part of royal life, have been written about extensively. Some commentators believe all the royals actually hate them but are terrified to get rid of them in case the tabloid newspapers accuse the family of cruelty to animals.
Brian Hoey, who has written a number of memoirs of life in royal service, recalled that the corgis served at least one useful function – they gave the household servants early warning that the royals were just about to appear because they had a habit of running on ahead.
Both Hoey and various servants of the time recall that the footmen rather disliked the dogs, some of which were bad tempered and inclined to bite. They were also not fully house trained and a supply of soda water and blotting paper had therefore to be kept on hand at all times to mop up an endless series of puddles.
One of Billy’s favourite stories concerned the corgis. When the mood took him he liked to exaggerate how badly behaved they were. He explained how one belonging to the Queen came off rather badly in a fight with another dog and had to have her leg amputated. Both her ears were also ripped off. The dog’s name was Heather and the Queen brought her along to Clarence House when she was coming for tea.
William and Mr Baker, another footman and one who knew nothing about Heather and her battles, were merrily getting drunk on pink gin in the kitchen and when Mr Baker, in the course of his duties, saw the dog, he went running back to William saying the gin was too strong as he had just seen a three-legged dog with no ears. William would weep with laughter as he told the story.
But if Billy disliked the corgis, he disliked other aspects of the royals’ lives even more.
At Birkhall, Billy didn’t take to salmon fishing – the Queen Mother’s other passion aside from parties – but he occasionally accompanied her to the river to help with picnics and drinks, especially drinks. He was always wary of the gillies, who were greatly liked by the Queen Mother – one or two had been with her for more than twenty years. Her favourite gillie, who did not want to be named, remembered a woman who loved salmon fishing but only if it came with a glass of her favourite tipple and her favourite page. And Billy was as skilled with the gin on the riverbank as he was in the dining room in London.
AT BIRKHALL, SANDRINGHAM, Windsor and Clarence House – and especially when he accompanied her abroad – Billy gradually made himself indispensable.
The exact process by which he did this went unnoticed by the other staff, as Ronald Smith, who worked at Sandringham, recalled.
Billy just had a knack of doing the right thing at the right time and when he turned on the gay charm, as we used to call it, he was irresistible. He also had a very protective air about him – protective, I mean, of those he liked. Even members of staff who didn’t really like him at all – because he sometimes behaved as if he was too good to talk to the rest of us – would admit that Billy played Elizabeth like a bloody fiddle.
She thought she was running the show but in many ways it was really Billy who was in charge. I don’t mean this in the sense that Billy ordered her about as John Brown was reputed to do with Victoria, but in the sense that Billy really was like a drug to Elizabeth. She tried to do without him now and then, especially if she thought he was getting a bit too big for his boots, but she quickly found she missed having him around – she really couldn’t do without him. I think so far as it was possible for her, she was a little in love with Billy.
Billy was even-tempered, skilful at assembling guests and making them feel relaxed. He was also very good at getting them in and out of a room – and in and out of Clarence House – discreetly, without bothering the Queen Mother herself and, crucially, without making the guests feel they were being shunted about too much.
It was a rare skill and a skill that numerous guests paid tribute to over the years. But the real Billy was a far less patient figure than his professional life would lead one to imagine, and occasionally it all went wrong, as Ronald Smith explains:
I can remember one luncheon party where Billy was doing his usual thing of greeting the Queen Mother’s guests and plying them with drink. There were a couple of serious types at this luncheon who Billy told me later had asked for water or lemonade or something similar. He was very scornful of people who wouldn’t drink alcohol because he felt the party would not really get going without a few gins to start followed by wine. So he got them their lemonade and surreptitiously splashed a bit of vodka in each glass so they wouldn’t taste anything. The luncheon party went very well and the Queen Mother later told Billy how much she had enjoyed it and that she was surprised how jolly the two teetotallers were. Billy never let on, but the two whose drinks had been spiked wrote to complain at what had been done to them and Billy was reprimanded by one of the equerries. Typically, he took absolutely no notice, and continued his policy of making everyone drink if he possibly could.
On another occasion, when he tried the same trick, one of the Queen Mother’s guests – who happened to be an old friend – complained to her that his drink had been tampered with and Billy got a further ticking off. He was in a bad mood that day and when the Queen Mother spoke to him his face became very red and he suddenly – and very r
udely – turned on his heel and stormed off without a word.
The Queen Mother was usually indulgent when Billy ‘had a fit’ as she used to say. One or two of the other servants felt that Billy’s tantrums, which were a regular occurrence in the staff room but rare with the Queen Mother herself, had something of the theatrical about them. It was almost as if they too were part of Billy’s repertoire; his way of entertaining and entrancing the old Queen. Certainly she was never angered or put out by Billy’s tantrums, exclaiming as he stormed off, ‘Oh, don’t be such a silly Billy,’ a line that seemed to amuse her greatly and which she used several times. Billy didn’t look back as he flounced off but the Queen Mother was careful never to be too harsh. He had a certain power over her and, in truth, she feared to upset him too much in case he resigned. She really would have felt bereft without him.
From Billy’s point of view, his deepening relationship with the Queen Mother made him increasingly aware of his own power. And if power corrupts, it certainly began to corrupt Billy, who felt to some extent that he was invulnerable, especially when it came to the rent boys and other young men he met on his late-night forays to Soho and elsewhere. As one colleague put it, ‘Billy began to think he could do as he pleased.’
ALMOST FROM THE time he moved to Clarence House, Billy spent his free time actively pursuing his fellow male servants and bringing back casual pick-ups he met during his free hours late in the evenings and at weekends.
One or two of those who worked with Billy at this time describe him as a sexual predator, but others say that many if not most of the young male servants were happy to take part in what can only be described as orgies.
Brian Wilson (not his real name) describes how he met Billy in a bar in Soho and was dazzled to hear that he worked for the royals. Along with two friends, he was invited back to Clarence House. During the group sex session that followed Billy suggested Brian should sit on the Queen Mother’s favourite sofa and there Billy had sex with him. Brian was convinced that taking risks was part of the sexual thrill for Billy. Another former lover who knew Billy well in the mid-1960s remembered the royal servant’s remarkable lack of caution.
Well, William used to hunt alone a lot of the time although even then it was a risky business, but gay men in those days had really sensitive antennae – they had to because if they got it wrong they might easily end up in court, or badly beaten up. Billy just knew when a new member of staff was homosexual – and most, though by no means all, of those who joined the royal household in more menial positions, were homosexual. There was a sort of homosexual grapevine outside the palace and mostly around central London and it got around that if you worked at one of the palaces the work was interesting, or at least superficially interesting, and it was also somewhere where you would automatically have a lot of sexual opportunity. You can imagine how word would get around that lots of gay young men were not only working in one place but living there too! They were like bees at a honey pot!
Imagine the servants’ quarters at Clarence House with half a dozen or more young randy men all sleeping there every night. And just ten minutes from Soho. I was part of it too and I have to say we had the time of our lives sneaking between bedrooms. Sometimes I’d sneak into a boy’s bedroom and there would be another servant there already, and even if they were already having sex they’d invite me to join them, which I usually did. It all made the low pay seem no problem at all! Personally too I have to say that I don’t remember Billy coercing anyone – he was good looking in those days and really quite a catch!
Billy took great risks even in his early days at Clarence House probably because, as several of his contemporaries noted, ‘he was extremely highly sexed and simply could not stop himself’.
Many of Billy’s contemporaries at Clarence House recall that he was a remarkable mix of discretion and recklessness. If he thought he could get away with it he would do it.
Brian Wilson recalled Billy turning up late one evening with a very rough-looking young man who was clearly a drug addict – ‘when you know what an addict looks like you never fail to spot one’.
The young man had the sort of skeletal face that goes with long-time addiction, but Billy, who had been drinking, went to great lengths to entertain him. He gave him a tour of the house including a number of the private rooms.
It was bad enough that he took the young man up to his room for sex, but to have given him a grand tour as well could have led to a major scandal. But I suspect that even though this was relatively early in Billy’s career, the Queen Mother would not have sacked him just for bringing that young man in. She just seemed to turn a blind eye to that sort of thing. She also had an instinctive, unshakeable belief in her own power to control events; if she didn’t think something bad or embarrassing would happen, then it would not happen.
Perhaps the best example of the Queen Mother’s tolerance of her wayward servant occurred when the News of the World reported that a ‘rent boy’ had been invited back to Clarence House by Billy. The paper made a huge fuss, but the Queen Mother simply responded by saying, ‘How kind of William to invite that poor boy in out of the rain.’
Billy seems to have been careful to invite boys back one at a time to Clarence House when the Queen Mother was there, but when she was away he frequently threw caution to the wind and invited two or even three young men at a time specifically because, as one of his contemporaries put it, ‘I think he rather had a taste for orgies’.
One or two of Billy’s former colleagues and friends believe that Billy’s predatory instincts have been exaggerated. They argue that in many cases he simply invited young men back to Clarence House because he wanted to show off, to impress and to entertain.
‘He was so proud of his job and his life,’ recalled one friend, ‘that he always had to have an audience. He would sweep along the corridors explaining in his slightly camp drawl what went on in each part of the house. The idea that he had sex with all the young men he brought back to the house is nonsense.’
When the Queen Mother was away he certainly continued to entertain but not always with the prime aim of seduction. He liked always to have people around him and he didn’t mind a bit if other servants gossiped about what he got up to so long as he didn’t actually overhear them.
It was the same with boys who stayed the night. The other servants would all know that ‘Billy had someone upstairs’ and Billy knew they knew, but he just didn’t care. After a night of entertaining dubious young men, he would stride along the corridors the next morning ‘like the most buttoned-up confidential character you could imagine’. Hiding his hangover, he would check the appearance of each room in the morning with an almost obsessive attention to detail.
It was only later in his career that he took more risks during the daytime, but by then he was at the height of his power.
THE ROUTINE OF the royal year was well established and Billy had decided by the mid-1950s that this was his job for life. He had begun to collect what some called the Queen Mother’s cast-offs and others called personal gifts. Certainly his room began to be filled – to overflowing it sometimes seemed – with small, attractive objects and signed photographs. He had acquired some expensive eighteenth-century porcelain and was also gradually acquiring a delicate Victorian tea service. Each year the Queen Mother gave him a new piece as a Christmas present and Billy had nearly completed the service by the time he left Clarence House. He regularly received other gifts from the Queen Mother, and various members of the royal family also sent him things.
Some of his colleagues were amazed that Billy accepted what were widely seen among the servants as royal cast-offs. One said:
Part of Billy’s job was to go out to Fortnum and Mason and elsewhere to buy gifts for the Queen Mother’s friends, but she never sent out to buy him presents. She just gave him any old odds and ends that happened to be lying about and that she no longer wanted. It was all rather in the manner of Lady Bountiful dispensing charity to the poor, but Billy never
seemed to notice or mind.
In fact, Billy delighted in the fact that he was regularly singled out for presents of various kinds. He didn’t care that they had not been bought specially for him. He felt that he was being given special treatment, which was hardly surprising given his devotion to the Queen Mother and the fact that, apart from sex, he had no focus at all outside his employment. A colleague remarked perhaps rather unkindly, ‘If she had given him a used handkerchief he’d have added it to his collection.’
The 1950s and 1960s were perhaps Billy’s happiest time. He was gradually becoming a central figure of importance at Clarence House and with his partner Reg he was able to enjoy a measure of personal domestic life. And Reg never tried to control Billy’s sexual promiscuity. He had freedom and security, pleasure and status.
VARIOUS COMMENTATORS HAVE given different dates for the start of Reg Wilcox’s relationship with Billy. By 1960 he had certainly joined the staff at Clarence House, and his route there was remarkably similar to that taken by Billy a decade earlier. Former equerry Major Colin Burgess says that Reg started work at Buckingham Palace in 1954 as a junior footman and then moved to Clarence House in 1960.
Basia Briggs, a close friend of Billy’s for more than a decade, thought Reg began working at Clarence House as early as 1957. But, whatever the date, there is no doubt that once they were working together they operated very much as a team. Reg eventually became Deputy Steward and the Queen Mother’s Page of the Presence, both titles of course largely meaningless but providing a wonderful echo of the days when well-born children went into royal service. The poet Geoffrey Chaucer, for example, became page – at the age of eight – to one of Edward III’s sons (later the Duke of Clarence) in the early 1350s.
