Royal butler recalls dancing with the queen

A former royal butler shares intimate Balmoral memories and moments from key royal events.

Royal butler recalls dancing with the queen at Balmoral and a candid farewell

Grant Harrold, once the royal household’s butler to Prince Charles and later a leading etiquette expert, recalls growing up near Glasgow and finding a path into royal service. He describes the Balmoral Ghillies Ball in September 2005, where nerves nearly got the better of him as he contemplated dancing with the Queen. Camilla, then newly the Duchess of Cornwall, encouraged him to join in, and soon he found himself on the dance floor with Her Majesty, stunned by the moment yet determined to follow the moves. Harrold notes the Queen’s practical ease during the evening and recounts being swept into a three‑person dance sequence that culminated with the monarch stepping forward to lead the next move himself. The memory captures a blend of formality and warmth that staff say characterizes many private royal gatherings at Balmoral.

Beyond the ballroom, Harrold recounts pony rides, corgis in the undergrowth, and brief, human exchanges that offered a window into a life lived under constant scrutiny. He later ferried anecdotes from Highgrove to the airwaves as his career shifted toward media and etiquette commentary, including covering the 2018 royal wedding of Harry and Meghan as a guest and as a commentator rather than a staff member. The piece traces how those experiences shaped his sense of duty, loyalty, and the evolving role of staff as observers of history. Harrold also writes openly about the Queen’s decline in 2022 and the private pain of saying goodbye, including his experience watching the funeral procession and his sense that a long chapter had closed. Adapted from The Royal Butler, the memoir serialised in the Daily Mail ahead of its August publication, the narrative blends personal memory with public moments, offering a portrait of a monarchy that remains many things to many people.

The account rests on a vivid, human scale. It underscores how royal life, though polished and ceremonial, is lived through small acts of kindness and moments of surprise that staff remember long after the fact. Harrold’s memories invite readers to see the monarchy as a long arc of tradition, duty, and ordinary human desire to belong. Yet the piece also tests boundaries between private recollection and public appetite for intimate detail. The risk is not that memory is unreliable, but that the line between storytelling and spectacle grows thinner when royal moments are treated as entertainment for a broad audience.

Taken as a whole, the interview highlights a shift in how royal service is valued: not just for protocol but for its potential to humanize public figures. The narrator’s later work in etiquette and media shows how veterans of the royal household turn insider knowledge into a public craft, shaping how audiences understand ceremony, memory, and leadership in a modern monarchy.

Highlights

Memories from Balmoral remind us that history is often told through small, human details rather than grand gestures.