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cost of refurbishing Clarence House and figures for it were grossly exaggerated. It
finally cost £28,000 over and above the original £50,000 voted by Parliament and part
of the excess was paid by the Privy Purse and from the Princess’s Wedding Fund. 5 In the
end it was not until May 1949, eighteen months after their wedding, that they were to
move into Clarence House.
On their return from honeymoon they were lent Clock House in Kensington Palace by
Elizabeth’s great-aunt and uncle, the Earl and Countess of Athlone, who were on a visit
to South Africa in 1948, but within three months the Athlones returned and Clarence
House, plagued by construction problems and industrial disputes, was still very far from
ready. The young couple were forced to move in with their in-laws at Buckingham
Palace, back to Elizabeth’s former apartments in which Philip, now at work all day at
the Admiralty as operations officer ‘pushing ships around’, was given a bedroom and a
sitting-room. It was hardly the ideal start and the couple were to remain as guests of the
King and Queen at Buckingham Palace, Windsor, Balmoral and Sandringham for a year.
Neither Philip nor his valet, John Dean, enjoyed the formality of the huge household.
Dean discovered that Bobo, whom he had first met at the start of the royal honeymoon,
was already an important personage at the Palace. She was, he said, ‘a small, smart,
rather peremptory Scotswoman’, who, when he told her his name was Dean but he was
always known as John, replied firmly, ‘Well, to me you will always be “Mr Dean”. We
have to keep a certain standing in the house.’ Dean recalled:
All twenty-one years of her service in the Royal Household seemed to be imprinted on her face and stature,
but she was quite friendly when thawed. I greatly enjoyed her company. She was a lovely dancer and very
good fun, with a nice sense of humour, but even when we were staying in some village, and were out socially
in the local pub, she always addressed me as ‘Mr Dean’. She always referred to Princess Elizabeth as ‘My
Little Lady’.
In private and to the Princess’s face, Bobo would call her Lilibet.
Hierarchical distinctions were strictly observed at the Palace, reaching a height of
formality at lunch in the Steward’s Room, where thirty or forty of the senior staff sat
down at a long wooden table in strict order of precedence. As Philip’s valet, Dean found
himself quite low down, with the King’s two valets, Thomas Jerram and James
MacDonald, a brusher (of the royal suits) and the Pages of the Presence all above him.
Before the meal the men stood behind their chairs with the women seated waiting for
the Palace Steward, Mr Ainslie, to say Grace. Then they sat down to be served by
waitresses and ‘Steward’s Room Boys’, after which Ainslie banged on the table for
silence and said ‘leaving Grace’ followed by a toast to the King and Queen drunk in
water. The men remained seated until the Queen’s dressers rose, led by the head dresser,
Miss Willox, and then trooped out still in order of their precedence in the household.
For all the rigid protocol, Dean was struck by the ‘immense loyalty’ which prevailed
among the staff despite unrealistic scales of pay and unacceptable hours. There was
very little jealousy or juggling for power precisely because everything was done by
precedent and strict order of seniority, and promotions when they occurred were