Butlers in the Media

by Steven Ferry

Our favorite turncoat is now the go-to person anytime the mainstream media wants some tittle tattle (idle talk, gossip) on royal goings-on. No point in forwarding the self-absorbed and -aggrandizing tripe expressed, but our profession continues to be poorly and regularly misrepresented by this ex-butler. Our best strategy is to simply set people straight wherever they believe or consider anything this person says or does to be normal for a butler or household/estate manager—including in any social media comments on the articles featuring him as an authority, either on the royals or in our profession.

For more nonsense, there now exists such a thing as a “Bottle butler,” an item that insulates bottles.

And on a more instructive note, a Russian detective novel has been published that covers events in 1896 and features a butler who expresses some pertinent sentiments about the profession.

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.