How the exile of royal confidantes Angela Kelly and Backstairs Billy shows just how ruthless courtiers can be… As the life of the Queen Mother’s butler Billy Tallon inspires a new West End show
Loyal but louche, diligent but drunk, discreet in word but indiscreet in life, the Royal Family’s most celebrated servant, ‘Backstairs Billy’ Tallon is to be celebrated in a play in London’s West End in the autumn — given equal billing with the woman he devotedly served for 50 years, the Queen Mother.
From the death of her husband, George VI, in 1952, until her own demise in 2002, this elegant, bouffant-haired flunkey never left the former Queen Elizabeth’s side. He poured her drinks, organised her parties and listened to her secrets. And he was the only person allowed to enter her rooms without knocking.
While the Queen Mother lived, Billy Tallon reigned supreme at Clarence House. But, tragically, he ended up in the gutter — literally.
In one respect, his fate has been mirrored by Angela Kelly, the late Queen Elizabeth II’s dresser and confidante. When his royal employer died, Billy — son of a Coventry shopkeeper — was sacked, then ejected from his grace-and-favour home in the shadow of Clarence House.
The late British royal butler William Tallon (12 November 1935 – 23 November 2007) pictured with HM The Queen Mother on her 88th birthday at Clarence House, London,1988
Billy Tallon shows emotion as the coffin of the Queen Mother arrives at the Queen’s Chapel in St James’ Place, London
Billy’s rise and fall will be depicted in a comedy called Backstairs Billy, starring Downton Abbey actress Penelope Wilton as the Queen Mother
The Duke of Kent depicted ith Billy Tallon at the unveiling of the portrait of the Queen Mother
While the Queen Mother lived, Billy Tallon reigned supreme at Clarence House
Ms Kelly, daughter of a Liverpool docker and, in effect, the late sovereign’s gatekeeper, suffered a parallel flight from grace at the hands of jealous courtiers. Though adored by the late Queen, she ruffled feathers among other royals and recently had to leave her rent-free home on the Windsor estate to move to the Peak District.
Billy’s rise and fall will be depicted in a comedy called Backstairs Billy, starring Downton Abbey actress Penelope Wilton as the Queen Mother, with Welsh actor and singer Luke Evans playing the title role. It’s a story worth telling.
When George VI died, the Queen Mother was only 51 and far from ready to be put out to pasture. But with her daughter firmly on the throne, the older Elizabeth had to find a new life for herself and a way to pass her time.
Enter, below stairs, William John Stephenson Tallon, a 15-year-old who’d written to Buckingham Palace begging for a job. He started out by walking Elizabeth’s corgis, a job he was to continue doing for the next half-century — but soon his talent to amuse was spotted, and he began his long climb up the stairs, into the Queen Mother’s heart.
Shaking off the shadows of bereavement, Clarence House became what one courtier described as ‘a glorious gin palace’ — with Billy, more usually known as William, the man to pour the Queen-size drinks. ‘When the lights go on in Clarence House, it’s showtime,’ he declared theatrically, and so began a lifetime of drinking and partying — well-behaved, but turbo-charged by Billy’s dynamite cocktails, which kept the Queen Mum happy for the rest of her days.
Deciding what to take with her to a function, Elizabeth wrote to her servant: ‘I think I will take two small bottles of gin and Dubonnet with me, just in case it is needed.’
Meanwhile, below stairs, the alcohol consumption was equally impressive — the royal cellars ensuring Billy’s day would always start with a pop. The royal account at nearby Fortnum & Mason guaranteed his drinks trolley never ran dry.
Fussy to a fault, Billy’s only purpose was to make sure everything in his caged mistress’s life went perfectly. ‘My job is to keep her smiling,’ he told royal biographer Hugo Vickers.
So adept at this was he, that he became to the Queen Mother what Scottish ghillie John Brown had been to Queen Victoria — without the sexual element.
Angela Kelly is seen during The State Funeral Of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey on September 19, 2022
When the axe swings at the Palace — as Angela Kelly discovered recently — it swings brutally. (Angela Kelly blows kisses during her move from her Windsor home)
The late Queen Elizabeth II with Angela Kelly (second right) views British designer Richard Quinn’s runway show
Angela Kelly received the Royal Victoria OrderInvestitures at Buckingham Palace
Billy was gay, and though he had a lifetime partner, Reg Wilcock, he was not above seducing vulnerable young footmen at a time when they were taking their first faltering steps in royal service.
Camp, theatrical, savage when he felt like it, he used his closeness to his boss to strengthen and protect his own position in the household. Soon, he became the most prominent among the 30-plus below-stairs staff who looked after the ex-Queen’s every need.
Lady-in-waiting Dame Frances Campbell-Preston later recalled: ‘It took a while to work out where everybody stood in this bizarre hierarchy [at Clarence House]. We were all devoted to Queen Elizabeth, but it didn’t mean we didn’t fight like cats and dogs.’
Temperamental and touchy, Billy was usually first into the fray. ‘It was all done with a great deal of theatre,’ recalled a fellow servant. ‘Billy always thought he was on stage.’
In 1978, Billy was appointed Steward and Page of the Backstairs — and the famous sobriquet was born. Even so, he might have escaped public notice but for his habit of closely attending the Queen Mother when she made her annual birthday appearance outside the gates of Clarence House, greeting well-wishers and accepting their bouquets. In his dashing tailcoat and starched white shirt, he became almost as familiar a figure as the royals themselves.
‘He knew how powerful he was,’ recalled Ken Wharfe, Princess Diana’s personal protection officer. ‘There were people in the royal circle who were not only envious of his style but his position; he’d become virtually untouchable.’
To underline the importance of his position, Billy was given Gate Lodge, a low, elegant building within the Clarence House compound, which had been used only for storage. He turned it into a graceful home stuffed with china, pictures, glass and silver — some borrowed, perhaps, from his unwitting employer.
Despite a lifetime’s involvement with partner Reg, they maintained separate residences — and young pageboys were warned what to expect if they accepted an invitation to drinks at Gate Lodge.
Once, Billy invited back a rent boy and convicted thief, and the subsequent headlines had many courtiers plotting to remove him. ‘But he had the support of the top lady, and that was the end of that,’ recalled Wharfe.
When the Queen Mother died, Billy’s world collapsed.
He and the 30-strong Clarence House staff were issued with redundancy notices — and although they were invited to a thank-you party, they discovered they were expected to organise it themselves.
When the axe swings at the Palace — as Angela Kelly discovered recently — it swings brutally.
For 50 years, Billy had lived within palace walls with no real idea of how the outside world worked or functioned. ‘He found he had to fend for himself,’ recalled Dame Frances Campbell-Preston. ‘He’d become institutionalised — never had to buy food or run a home, or find a plumber when the drains got blocked — he’d never shopped at a supermarket. It was tough for him.’
In the dark months and years after the Queen Mother’s death, Billy — now occupying a Duchy of Cornwall flat near the Oval cricket ground in South-East London — had brooded on his sense of loss.
Still loyal to his late mistress, he never gave an interview. But his biographer Tom Quinn revealed a conversation Billy had had with a friend about the way he’d been treated. ‘It was as if I’d just worked in the palace for six months, washing bottles,’ he said bitterly.
‘The truth is, some members of the royal household enjoyed my unhappiness. They knew the Queen Mother could no longer protect me, so the knives were out. I suppose I was silly not to have known it would happen.’
The Queen came to visit him, but he felt her response to him was chilly.
‘The household disliked me because I was too close. I knew that was their view because, every now and then, one would get angry with me and say: ‘Who do you think you are?’ ‘
He increasingly turned to the bottle — and then, one night, he was pictured lying drunk in the gutter after a society party.
Backstairs Billy’s fall from grace was now almost complete. After years of loyal silence, the worm began to turn.
Fuelled by loneliness and alcohol, he started his memoirs, setting to rights the disputes and disagreements — as he perceived them — which ended his half-century of royal service.
Then, two things happened in rapid succession.
In 2007, five years after the Queen Mother’s death, Billy himself died unexpectedly at the age of 72, of heart failure brought on by years of alcohol abuse. And a posse of anonymous men entered his flat and began sifting through his possessions.
‘There’s no proof that anything went missing,’ writes Quinn, though pointing out that when Billy’s possessions were put up for auction months later, there were significant gaps in the catalogue — small items he’d intended to leave to friends which had vanished. And Quinn quotes one of Billy’s friends: ‘Not a scrap of written material survived the visit by these unidentified men.’
So, alas, no memoirs from William Tallon, the Queen Mother’s most devoted servant. No home truths from behind the wrought-iron gates, no cocktail recipes, no naughty stories — and no revealing anecdotes on what Her Majesty thought of her son-in-law Prince Philip, who she once dubbed ‘the Hun’.
Five hundred years on from the bloody days of the Tudor court, nothing had changed. Royal favourites rarely survive the death of their protectors — and Backstairs Billy was no exception.
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