A Day in the life of a Palace Manager

A Day in the Life of a Palace Manager

I would often have coffee and toast and drive myself into work, in my Toyota Corolla, I would go through security and have the car checked, HMK had endless assassination attempts and anyone could be used to get to the King and his family. We all had to be massively discrete and keep everything confidential.

I remember her Majesty telling me to be careful writing letters home, knowing that anything I might write about future events, could be picked up by extremists or even overseas security teams.

Security was essential and finding loyal staff was especially important, the joke on new staff was that the secret service had microphones hidden in the plants. It wasn’t true, but it made the point that we had to be careful with what we said.

I would begin my day by catching up on any business from yesterday and then prepare my team for any special event or occasion.

If we had a quiet day, we would check in on important management functions of training, staff meals, staff welfare, maintenance issues. We would personally serve their majesties breakfast, having checked all table set ups and whilst at Breakfast, we would have a list of bullet points on a printed card, for their majesties to discuss if they were so inclined.

The leadership team would meet to cover any essential business and points for the day and we would follow that up with Butler team meetings, normally conducted in Arabic but with all the essential points passed to the Butler leader. Abdulhraham, who was like my brother, we had such a strong relationship.

His Majesty ran the country, and her Majesty ran the palaces and therefore Her Majesty was always the point of contact. I would ensure that any observations and wishes were transmitted to the correct team and would check up on these so to be kept in the loop and informed.

I would also update their majesties food preferences and keep the kitchen and Butler team informed, and also liaise with the nannies to make sure the children were eating well and ensure we cooked food in a healthy way, we have Hamzah, Hashim, Raiyah and Iman to take care of and always made sure we had enough choices, and that food was never boring. Spending ten minutes with the nannies and children was like entering into a different world.

If we had guests staying within the palace grounds, I would liaise with the Butlers serving those guests, liaise with housekeeping and ensure the guest expectations were all met, often I would meet very important guests and gain a small insight into their life. Mostly we worked with the protocol of the guest and conveyed questions and answers.

In the beginning, I would work all day shifts, covering, breakfast lunch, dinners, I ensure that all rooms were prepared and ready to receive guests and events would usually start either with a meeting or a reception where drinks and snacks were served allowing the Butler team to dress a table with drinks, juices, water and salads, mezza’s, preparing the chef, so he could work on his timings. Once her Majesty was ready, we would announce dinner to HMQ, she would invite the guests into the dining room, and we would begin with breads and mezza’s and either cold starters would be set or served and so forth. Hot food was usually served butler style by offering the Spoon and fork and always serving their majesties simultaneously first, followed by the guest and then rotating clockwise, we would always clear to a tray and serve tea and coffee with dessert and then let the family have privacy to finish any meeting, waiting outside in case HMQ needed us.

All the way through the meal I would liaise with the chef and keep him in the loop on timings and ensure the relationship was very strong, always at the end of the meal, I would enquire was there anything Her Majesty would have liked differently and that then normally allowed feedback, although choosing the right moment was important.