As I hid behind a wooden screen in the Balmoral ballroom, panic set in. How had I ever believed I could fit into the grand and enduring tradition of the Ghillies Ball? This annual celebration was a gesture of appreciation for the royal staff’s dedication.

Growing up in Airdrie—an industrial town near Glasgow—my 13-year-old self was captivated by the glow of our TV as it broadcast a documentary offering rare glimpses into royal life. I was especially fascinated by the scenes of the ball.

The Queen appeared in a graceful blue gown, accompanied by a red tartan sash and a sparkling tiara, perfectly executing the Scottish country dances I had learned back in primary school.

I’d gone to bed dreaming of one day dancing with the Queen but now, on this night in September 2005, not long after I’d joined the royal household as a butler to Prince Charles, even the thought of being on the same dance-floor as Her Majesty was too much. I decided to limit myself to peeking around the screen occasionally to see what was happening – but the Duchess of Cornwall clocked me and persuaded me out to join her in a waltz.

As we glided around the room, I saw people give a double-take as they realised it was the duchess, there at the event for the first time under her new title, five months after marrying her prince in Windsor. Then it hit me. All the years of longing, of imagining myself in such a setting, believing it would one day happen, but not knowing how.

‘What’s wrong?’ Camilla asked. ‘Why are you so nervous?’

Fortunately, the duchess had always been approachable and someone with whom you could be candid.

‘I’m worried because I always wanted to come to this ball, and I thought that one day I would come here and dance with the Queen. It’s my dream come true, ever since I was a kid…’

Queen Elizabeth II dancing at the Ghillies Ball at Balmoral Castle in September 1971

I’d gone to bed dreaming of one day dancing with the Queen but now, on this night in September 2005, not long after I’d joined the royal household as a butler to Prince Charles , even the thought of being on the same dance-floor as Her Majesty was too much, writes Grant Harrold

The Ghillies Ball – an annual event held to thank the royal staff for all their hard work – takes place at Balmoral Castle in Scotland

‘Grant,’ she said, smiling gently, ‘don’t worry about it. There are about 150 people here. I think it’s highly unlikely you have to worry about dancing with the Queen.’

I felt as if a weight had been lifted but, after we’d finished the waltz, it was time to find another person to make up a trio for the Dashing White Sergeant, a reel in which we would dance with a succession of other sets of three people. ‘Hmm,’ said Camilla, turning her head to one side and looking past me. I followed her gaze… and my heart stopped. Standing directly behind me was the Queen. I stood, stunned, before remembering my manners and bowing my head. ‘Good evening, Your Majesty.’

My mouth was like sandpaper and my legs had turned to jelly but before I had time to consider what it might mean to actually dance with our monarch, the Queen said: ‘Right, let’s get this dance done,’ and grabbed me by the hand.

Holding the Queen and the duchess’s hands as we faced Charles, the Duke of Edinburgh and another guest, I kept thinking ‘this is crazy’, but on the dance went.

It was great fun but, as we moved on to new threesomes, I started making mistakes and forgetting which way to turn.

I knew what a stickler the Queen was for the correct moves and worried that I would see a shake of the head or raised finger but either she hadn’t noticed or had decided to let me off.

Eventually, after we’d completed several sets, the music stopped, I bowed and thanked my dance companions, and there was a break in proceedings.

‘It was wonderful you got to do that,’ the duchess said.

Charles and Diana wearing tartan during the annual Braemar Highland Games in 1989

At Balmoral, the Queen liked to cook and wash up and there was the same relaxed vibe there as at Wood Farm, writes Grant Harrold

It certainly was and I will be forever grateful to her for helping make it possible. When I relayed it all to my parents over the phone, they couldn’t believe it had happened and neither could I but it was just one of my memorable encounters with the Queen.

On my first visit to Birkhall, Prince Charles’s summer retreat in Aberdeenshire, several months before that Ghillies Ball, I heard that Her Majesty had granted permission for the ponies she kept at Balmoral, which was just a short drive away, to be exercised by staff who, like me, had riding experience.

I signed up and after an enjoyable hour exercising the ponies amid the stunning scenery we descended back to the castle. Just then, my pony started acting up and pulling into reverse.

I looked down and saw some creatures move in the undergrowth, right under the pony’s hooves. Were they rabbits? Rats? I shouted to the leader, ‘Oh God, there are rats at the hooves and it’s upsetting the horses!’

The woman who had taken us out shook her head at me, telling me to stop talking and then gestured to the side where I saw a little lady with a headscarf on. Oh no!

I looked down again and suddenly realised the ‘creatures’ were actually dogs… corgis, to be precise. And the woman in the headscarf was Her Majesty out for a walk. The Queen smiled and, as she called her dogs, said: ‘I’m so sorry’ to the group. The corgis went running to her and she gathered them up. We all bowed our heads, which on a horse looks ridiculous. Then we carried on as normal but I thought how incredible it was, to have come face to face with the Queen.

There was no conversation other than a nod of the head and a ‘Good afternoon,’ but for me it was a huge moment.

Balmoral was the Queen’s favourite residence and I remembered it from my childhood because my parents had often taken me and my younger brother Gordon, who later became a footman at Buckingham Palace, on holidays to Aberdeenshire.

I might not have been able to go to Prince William and Kate’s wedding, but I was back at Windsor to witness Prince Harry marry Meghan Markle in May 2018

Grant Harrold’s book The Royal Butler is being serialised in the Daily Mail and will be published on August 22

We went to see the Royal Family attend church there on a Sunday and another highlight was going to the Braemar Gathering, the annual Highland games held just a stone’s throw from the castle.

The first year we went, I was in my early teens and Princess Diana had been there, along with Prince Charles and Prince Philip in their kilts and tweeds. The sight of contestants in their tartan tossing the cabers and the smell of freshly cut grass lived long in my memory.

At Balmoral, the Queen liked to cook and wash up and there was the same relaxed vibe there as at Wood Farm, the five-bedroom cottage situated in the grounds of Sandringham, the Queen’s country house in Norfolk.

William and Harry loved hosting shooting parties there for their friends and I would travel with them as butler. When we were there at the end of November 2005, Harry came into the pantry looking for some kitchen roll.

‘What is it?’ I said. ‘I’ll do it.’

‘No, no, no, I’ll do it,’ he said and ran off with the paper towels. I followed him upstairs and saw that one of his guest’s dogs had pooped on the landing.

Harry wanted to clean it up because he felt responsible. I helped him but it showed what a nice, down-to-earth guy he was. He never expected to be waited on all the time; he was capable of cleaning up after himself.

William was the same and it frustrated me that he and Kate never had dinner in the dining room at Highgrove, preferring to eat their meals off trays. I often suggested that they should have a formal dinner which I would butler for them. But he normally laughed the idea off, saying they didn’t want any fuss.

That was until 2008 when, with Valentine’s Day approaching, he finally agreed to go ahead with something more sophisticated.

This wouldn’t be any ordinary meal. As far as I knew, it was their first romantic Valentine’s dinner since their well publicised break up the previous year.

I’d been really upset when I heard about the split because they were so sweet together.

As far as I was concerned, for the time they were apart there was no sign of anyone else. Kate was always the one.

So, I felt truly honoured and delighted that William had taken me up on my offer. Even though it was a typically chilly February evening, we planned for it to be outside the main house, at the top of the Thyme Walk, a stunning avenue of clipped golden yew and herb bushes leading down to the lily pond.

I briefed the chef and laid the table for the young couple. It was very intimate and afterwards they went inside to thank the chef for the meal.

What a far cry it was from the big party the previous summer, just after they’d got back together. Not everybody was aware that they had been reunited so people didn’t know whether to speak to Kate or not, so nobody was taking any notice of her.

I had been chatting to my friend Jack, one of the gardeners at Highgrove, and when we realised that she was on her own we went over and talked to her. When you think of the stunning, elegant princess she blossomed into, it was possibly the last time she could have been at an event and remained anonymous. Much as I would love to have been at William and Kate’s wedding, in April 2011, I was on duty that day. This was maybe for the best, given what had happened when I was invited to Charles and Camilla’s blessing back in 2005.

With all the staff places taken, they had gone out of their way to invite me under their allocation for friends and family, and I was really excited until I got to St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on the day and discovered that I was stuck right behind a stone pillar. I had to laugh.

I might not have been able to go to Prince William and Kate’s wedding, but I was back at Windsor to witness Prince Harry marry Meghan Markle in May 2018.

By then, I had left the royal employ, taking redundancy after the scaling back of operations in preparation for when Charles would one day become king, which meant that they no longer required a dedicated butler at Highgrove.

They did offer me the chance to move to London, but I didn’t relish the thought of moving to a big city.

Fortunately, I had found a new career in the media as one of the UK’s leading experts on etiquette.

Whenever there was a royal event or breaking news story, the press were keen to get an inside perspective of what it might mean for the royal household, and I was at Harry and Meghan’s wedding both as a media commentator and as a guest of my friend Jack, the aforementioned gardener at Highgrove.

I was never in Meghan’s company but I was delighted to see Prince Harry so happy. The crowds turned out in unbelievable numbers and the atmosphere was amazing. Our tickets permitted us to sit outside, which was perfect, because I saw a lot more than I did when inside for Prince Charles and Camilla’s marriage blessing.

The couple had provided picnic bags with shortbread, water, and a royal chocolate coin in a commemorative bag.

We could see everybody walking in and out and hear the whole service, including the animated and very lengthy sermon by the American bishop Michael Curry.

Once all the formalities were over, we watched as the happy couple, and then the other members of the Royal Family, filed out of the chapel. When Prince Philip came out he turned to the Queen and said, ‘Thank f*** that’s over.’

It was very funny. I think he was speaking for the majority of people, who were wondering what it was all about and when it was going to end, but he was the man who actually said it.

In 2022, when the country united to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and she appeared briefly on the balcony of Buckingham Palace to see the finale of the pageant along The Mall, I was struck by how frail she looked.

Despite my fears, I kept telling myself she would be fine and that she would live to be 100, at least. But sadly it was only a few months before the events of September 8, 2022, a day I still remember as if it was yesterday.

As news of the Queen’s declining health broke, I was about to do a live link with Piers Morgan from my home when the cameraman who had travelled to me from London pointed to the TV and said: ‘Look.’

The BBC news was on but then the screen went black and suddenly a picture of the Queen came up and the national anthem played.

Oh my God, I thought, but I didn’t have time to process it because for the next four hours I was doing near-continuous broadcasts.

When I got to 10pm and was finally finished for the day, I received a message from Jack.

‘I’m sorry to tell you but I’ve just seen this,’ and he sent a link saying the Queen had died in her bed but they had moved her body into the ballroom at Balmoral.

He knew that was going to be the bit that got me, because I had danced with her in the ballroom, and he was right. I cried for about an hour. I felt guilty because even when my mum died, I didn’t cry for that long. On the day of the funeral, I was at the Queen Elizabeth Centre in Westminster, the hub for all the media organisations, and as the funeral started it suddenly hit me that I hadn’t said goodbye.

With my media obligations done for the day, I went out into the streets and found my way to a cordoned-off road next to the Palace.

Strangely, there were no members of the public there, just police officers. By now the tears were falling and one policeman saw me standing there, upset.

‘I know the emotion,’ he said. ‘Everybody feels the same.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I knew her.’

‘How?’ he said. I told him the background and explained, ‘I haven’t said goodbye to her.’ ‘Do you want to come in here?’ he said, kindly. ‘If you come here you’ll see her.’

He let me stand by the police cordon. There was nobody in front of me. A few minutes later the funeral carriage procession came by. She was literally just in front of me.

The police around me were crying. I couldn’t believe I got to stand in a place where I could see her. The police were so sweet. It was all I wanted. In my head, I got my chance to say goodbye.

I bowed my head and silently paid my respects to Queen Elizabeth – a truly incredible woman whose passing felt like the end of a big chapter of my life.

• Adapted from The Royal Butler by Grant Harrold (Seven Dials, £22), to be published August 28. 

• Grant Harrold 2025. To order a copy for £19.80 (offer valid to 30/08/25; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.

The day I surprised a tour group in Charles’s most private sanctuary

One of my duties at Highgrove was to clean and look after the Sanctuary, a little church built within the grounds to commemorate the Millennium, its location specifically chosen so the Prince would be able to see it while looking out from his dressing-room window.

With a ceiling decorated with sculptures of his favourite vegetables – runner beans and turnips – the Sanctuary has been described by Charles as his sacred place and the only location ‘where nobody can get me’. Whenever he stayed at Highgrove he made sure he could spend some moments there alone in peace and tranquillity. Once a week, I would take a mop and brush and delicately clean it.

I took my responsibilities to look after it very seriously but one day I was in there at the same time as a public tour of the gardens was being conducted.

I could hear the guide saying, ‘Nobody but nobody goes in there. It is sacred.

The only person who goes in there is His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and a chosen few personally selected by His Royal Highness.’

At that moment, I walked out carrying my mop and bucket, and the visitors burst out laughing, as did the guide. I couldn’t have timed it better.