10th-Sep-22, 12:13 PM
I spent much of my childhood and adolescence living in the next village to Sandringham, my uncle was the local butcher who supplied most of the meat to the estate, he was very friendly with the Queen's chef and there are a number of tales I could tell about the household. I never met the Queen but she was a very frequent sight in the area and the locals were often overtaken by her when she was out driving so nobody was that overawed by Royalty.
However, 'Her Maj' was directly responsible for a welcome pay rise I once received. During the mid 70s I was employed as a lighting sales engineer and Sandringham estate was one of my customers. In 1977, the chief electrician asked me to sort out some floodlighting for the flagpole on top of Sandringham House following a command from on high. This would necessitate some trial and error so I would need to take samples up to the roof and adjust the beam angles so that the flag would be lit regardless of the wind direction.
Now there was a slight problem with doing this as we would need to run the Royal Standard up the flagpole in order to do the job and that was not allowed as the Queen wasn't in residence at the time so there was a delay while permission was sought and granted from Buckingham Palace. The only route to the relevant part of the roof was through the Queen's private section of the house so I have actually been past her bedroom but the door was shut so I never got a glimpse inside.
Anyway, job eventually done, lights installed and they are there to this day as far as I know. Some weeks later my area manager informed me that he had received a letter from the palace saying that the Queen was very pleased with the job I had done and thanking me for my efforts. As a result the lit flagpole was used in some publicity material for the firm and I got a £250 p.a. pay rise.
Just a small footnote in the greater scheme of things I suppose but yet another example of her thoughtfulness and attention to detail, taking time to thank someone she had never met for doing a minor job at one of her houses.
In the words of Paddington Bear at the Jubilee: "Thank you Ma'am..................for everything."
However, 'Her Maj' was directly responsible for a welcome pay rise I once received. During the mid 70s I was employed as a lighting sales engineer and Sandringham estate was one of my customers. In 1977, the chief electrician asked me to sort out some floodlighting for the flagpole on top of Sandringham House following a command from on high. This would necessitate some trial and error so I would need to take samples up to the roof and adjust the beam angles so that the flag would be lit regardless of the wind direction.
Now there was a slight problem with doing this as we would need to run the Royal Standard up the flagpole in order to do the job and that was not allowed as the Queen wasn't in residence at the time so there was a delay while permission was sought and granted from Buckingham Palace. The only route to the relevant part of the roof was through the Queen's private section of the house so I have actually been past her bedroom but the door was shut so I never got a glimpse inside.
Anyway, job eventually done, lights installed and they are there to this day as far as I know. Some weeks later my area manager informed me that he had received a letter from the palace saying that the Queen was very pleased with the job I had done and thanking me for my efforts. As a result the lit flagpole was used in some publicity material for the firm and I got a £250 p.a. pay rise.
Just a small footnote in the greater scheme of things I suppose but yet another example of her thoughtfulness and attention to detail, taking time to thank someone she had never met for doing a minor job at one of her houses.
In the words of Paddington Bear at the Jubilee: "Thank you Ma'am..................for everything."
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