..........Okay, that is not easy for her as she surely enjoyed or even needed the attention of her personal staff and the knowledge that she was the boss. Her experiences with the "Grey Men" come to mind, memories she surely tried to expurge by having her own employees. ........
I am so pleased you mentioned the 'Grey Men' Kataryn, because this is one of Sarah's alleged difficulties that I have never really understood.......
Please can I provide some background on 'grey men'?
I literally worked with 'Grey Men' after leaving university and starting my first Civil Service job. The environment was seemingly 'strict and stuffy' back in the 1980's and the senior civil servants - one of whom was my actual boss - came from the exact background - family, educational, regimental etc that the BP 'grey men' came from. Indeed, some of the 'grey men' literally had worked or went to work at BP.....
And my, oh, my, did I find them strict. The rules they laid down seemed pretty darn impossible. Everybody senior to you had to be referred to as 'sir', [or even 'Sir' as many had been honoured!!], Colonel etc. First names were
never used. There was a very stict dress code for female employess: navy or black, suits and dresses, no low necks and no short sleeves. No bare legs!! Girls had to tie their hair back once it reached shoulder length. I always carried a spare pair of tights [pantyhose] but after a particular run [no pun intended!!] of bad luck, one day I laddered my spare pair as well - the hole was minute, but even so was spotted by the Secretary to my boss - [an ancient terrifying spinster called 'Miss Joyce'.] From the resulting fuss, you would have thought that I had turned up and was sitting at my desk naked!!! And so I went to work with two spare pairs of tights in my briefcase after that... No biros were allowed - and don't forget to bring your own bottle of ink to refill your fountain pen. Parker Permanent Black ink or (rather racey this!!): Blue-black ink only!!! Office life was conducted at a very 'quiet' level - if you had to leave your desk to seek assistance from another colleague, you had to return sharp-ish to your own desk, with no time to exchange even minimal pleasantries and even though we had our own offices [this was before open-plan] conversations had to be conducted barely above whisper-level. If you suddenly wanted a cup of coffee, hard luck; you had to wait until the 'trolley' appeared: around 11am in the morning and then 3.30pm in the afternoon. Mugs and paper cups were never seen - it was a china cup-and-saucer, if you please [with minimal contents] served with two 'standard' biscuits 'one plain and one fancy' on a tea-plate, all for a compulsory £1 a week whether you wanted a drink or not and regardless of whether you were actually present or not... [There was much consternation once over a Bourbon biscuit - basically two biscuits 'sandwiched' together by a layer of chocolate [non-dairy] cream - with the Grey Men insisting that this bourbon biscuit was the equivalent to 'one plain and one fancy' biscuit combined!!! There was even protocol over office curtains - as a so-called 'fast track graduate', I was - even though it was my first job- still deemed sufficiently 'senior' to be part of the 'grade' entitled to a pair of curtains at my window........those in less-senior grades, even if very long-serving individuals, used to stare out into the uncurtained darkness during long winter nights.... And boy, did you have to be punctual: there was a signing-in book, rigorusly enforced....... One day, I was delayed arriving at work because of a bomb scare [it was a time of IRA bombings] because the police would not let us pass as they had cordonned off the area whilst it was evacuated and the suspicous package [which did turn out to be a bomb] was detonated... I arrived at 11.00am and had to sign the 'Late book', fill in two report cards, report to my boss AND make up the time I had missed, all for something that I had not caused [and of course I could not even ring my boss to alert him to the problems whilst I was detained, because it was all pre- the invention of the mobile [cellphone].
One day, I rushed to Covent Garden where a friend from Oxford had started her first job as a trainee at one of the best advertising agencies in London in order to meet her for a very quick lunch..........and was struck by the breezy informality that constituted her office life - she called her boss by her first name, proceedings were conducted in a breezy conversational 'hubbub', if it was 10.15am and you wanted some coffee, then you had some, either disappearing off to the canteen or nipping round the corner to a small cafe [this was pre-Starbucks etc]. Worse, my friend was wearing trousers [albeit smart ones] and one of her colleagues literally HAD A BEARD!!!! They even had the RADIO on [to stimulate creative thoughts, presumably] Yet despite these 'frivolities', civilised life as we knew it had not ceased to exist....
I was envious, but for all that, espcially now that I look back, the Grey Men, although old-fashioned and stuffy were not actually unfair. You soon learned to 'keep in their good books' basically by avoiding trouble. Yes, it seemed a bit hard, but in fact it was not impossible. The Grey Men only caused you trouble if basically you caused trouble first......it was just a question of taking the rough with the smooth - and there was some smooth: by convention, we finished 'on the dot' at 5.30pm every night unless there was some nasty emergency, which there wasn't usually and on Fridays we finished at 4pm 'in order to get to our country houses for the weekend' [not in my case, but you get the picture]. We also had sprecial leave: always a Tuesday off work after a [Monday] bank holiday, and always a day off to celebrate the Queen's birthday [the actual week day or the nearest week day in April to HM's birthday] ditto a special day off to celebrate the Accession...
Sarah in my very humble opinion should have realised that the Grey Men would have caused her NO problems if she had behaved herself....and there is another
vey significant point that people often fail to notice - 'The Buckingham Palace Grey Men' are NOT an
Independent entity - there seems to be a common misconception amongst the public at large that the 'Grey Men' and the 'Queen's advisors' are a sort of 'superior boss' that even the Queen has to defer to: wrong, wrong and wrong again:
Everything that is done is done on the instructions of the Queen, believe me: If the 'Grey Men' exercise discipline in a certain way, it is because they are carrying out the Queen's direct wishes - and by doing so, they actually avoid the Queen having to become
directly involved in any 'unpleasantness' herself......
Certainly Sarah gave the Grey Men a field day by her behaviour, and they even had to 'whip' Sophie Wessex into shape when she began to 'sell' the 'Royal Brand' when she attempted to combine her new PR firm with her royal role: but she gave up her business, soon 'knuckled down' as a working member of the RF and so the Grey Men no longer 'plauged her' [and the Queen ultimately rewarded her with membership of the Royal Family Order in order to show that bygones were 'forgiven and forgotten'] Sarah could just as easily have helped herself; she certainly realised how to behave in the prescence of royalty and what 'was wrong and what was right' at one point...
Just my thoughts and opinions
Alex