Backstairs Billy: The Life of William Tallon, the Queen Mother's Most Devoted ServantAuthor :
Paperback
Published : Monday 29 February 2016
You may also like ...
by
Hardback
14 May 2020
>>
€24.10
Extended stock - Dispatch 5-7 days
by
Hardback
03 May 2018
>>
€12.04
Extended stock - Dispatch 5-7 days
by
Paperback
04 Apr 2019
>>
€8.42
Extended stock - Dispatch 5-7 days
by
Paperback
29 Feb 2016
>>
€10.83
Extended stock - Dispatch 5-7 days
Description
The highly entertaining biography of one of the Queen Mother's most devoted servants,William Tallon, which shows the royal family through the eyes of one of its most extrovert characters.
From humble beginnings as a shopkeeper's son in Coventry to 'Page of the Backstairs' at Clarence House, William Tallon, or 'Backstairs Billy' as he came to be known, always knew he was destined for a life in the royal circle. As as a small boy Billy was fascinated by this glamorous world of pageantry and excess. Charming, loyal, promiscuous and in possession of a truly wicked sense of humour, Billy entered royal service at the age of fifteen and, over the next fifty years, became one of the most notorious figures, and most remarkable characters, ever to have graced the royal household. Although a servant, over time Billy became one of the late Queen Mother's most trusted friends and confidants. While others came and went, Billy was the one servant the Queen Mother just could not do without. She adored him, and he her, perhaps because of his high camp style or his witty and provocative remarks about the well-born equerries, royal press people and advisers. Sometimes scandalous, often shocking, always entertaining, Backstairs Billy is the fascinating life story of the man who spent more than half a century working for one of the world's most elusive institutions, giving us a rare glimpse of what life in the British royal family is really like.
Reviews