LONDON — Collectors paid thousands of dollars Saturday for letters from British royalty to a trusted servant, including a note from the late Queen Mother Elizabeth requesting the aide to pack bottles of gin and Dubonnet for an outing, “in case it is needed.”
The undated note sold for $32,000 at an auction of mementoes belonging to royal servant William Tallon.
Tallon, nicknamed “Backstairs Billy” by the media, joined the royal household at age 15 and served the family for 51 years, rising to become the queen mother’s steward and Page of the Backstairs. He died in November; he was 72.
His vast collection of royal memorabilia includes photographs, paintings, gifts, letters and Christmas cards, and gives an insight into the informal side of life in the royal family.
The queen mother’s letter to Tallon had been expected to sell for about $600 but drew a flurry of telephone bids.
In it, the mother of Queen Elizabeth II requested lunch outdoors and said she wanted to take along “two small bottles of Dubonnet and gin . . . in case it is needed.”
A 1982 letter from Princess Diana telling Tallon about the birth of her first child, Prince William, sold for $10,000.
“We are not sure at the moment what has hit us, except a very strong pair of lungs!” the princess wrote. “Both parents are making little sense, we just seem to spend most of our time gazing at this tiny person!”
The top price of the day was $59,500 for a portrait of the queen mother by Sir James Gunn.
