Butlers in the Media

by Steven Ferry

A butler for a royal family during the 70’s and 80’s was unfortunately found guilty of paedophelia—this does not reflect well on the profession, obviously, but it seems to be a rare occurrence, thankfully.

Bentley has created an impressive futuristic concept car to celebrate its centennial, an electric vehicle with a 435 mile range and 15 minutes to recharge to 80%, as well as self-drive options, in case the owner prefers not to hire a chauffeur. Naturally, it retains much of its heritage and connection with tradition, including what it calls a Personal Assistant and the media typically calls “a butler”—albeit an AI one.

“Butler conferencing” is a new arena for butlers—in this case, a real butler applying his superior skill sets/service style to the conference arena.

A Michelin star restaurant is called the Drunken Butler—perhaps a throwback to the German Christmas-time short-movie called Dinner for One.

This, apparently, should you ever need it, is the Japanese script for “butler:” “しつじ” 

A recent headline: “Luciano Pavarotti’s former butler reveals opera star’s remarkable list of food demands.” Wow—what does this butler not understand about the very real requirement in our profession for discretion and maintaining confidences? And he even runs a butler school— meaning we can expect more butlers to come into the profession with flawed basics. It is standards that make butler service special;  if these are not known, or invalidated or misapplied, then we no longer offer a superior service—a level of service that clients and guests expect of us.

The Institute is dedicated to raising service standards by broadly disseminating the mindset and superior service expertise of that time-honored, quintessential service provider, the British Butler, updated with modern people skills, and adapted to the needs of modern employers and guests in staffed homes, luxury hotels, resorts, spas, retirement communities, jets, yachts & cruise ships around the world.