Paul Kidd, who was a royal butler from 1975 to 1982, spoke to the documentary ‘Royal Servants’, uploaded to YouTube in 2011, about this interaction. He explained how he was in “agony” after accidentally spilling hot gravy on the Queen Mother, but that her gracious reaction really showed her character. The beloved royal, who was consort to King George VI for 15 years and then Queen Mother for another 50 years during the reign of her daughter Queen Elizabeth II, took the blame herself to help Mr Kidd save face.

Mr Kidd said: “When I was serving the Queen Mother one evening, I went in with the gravy and the sauce, and as I went down the gravy boat slid, so I grabbed it quickly and a plop of gravy went splop – straight down the Queen Mother’s cleavage!

“And it was red hot gravy, and her beautiful eyes went cold and she was badly burned, and it was just seconds and her face froze with the pain ‒ and the steam coming up from her cleavage, she looked like Joan of Arc.

“And I felt dreadful, I said ‘Your Majesty, I’m terribly sorry’ ‒ and I meant it!

“And the Queen Mother said ‘I’m the one who’s sorry, Paul, I actually nudged your elbow.’

“She hadn’t touched me at all, there was no physical contact ‒ that was her gracious way of realising the agony I was in for putting her in extreme agony.”

In this way, the Queen Mother showed compassion in helping Mr Kidd feel better about his mistake.

However, not all the Royal Family are so gracious, according to a number of other servants.

Peter Russell, who was a royal servant from 1954 to 1968, described Princess Margaret as “difficult” in the documentary.

He said: “Of course, at a banquet for instance or a big social occasion, it meant you had to dance attendance on her all night long, possibly to be just standing to her left or right with an ashtray so she didn’t have to look to see where she flicked her ash.”

He added: “They want you there but they don’t want you there.

“They want you there because you have to be there. They want you there because they can’t manage without you.”

Another royal who is said to not treat the staff very well on occasion is Prince Andrew, according to an undercover reporter who infiltrated Buckingham Palace.

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Ryan Parry from the Daily Mirror got a job in the Palace back in 2003, looking to expose flaws in their security.

He worked there for two months and heard all kinds of gossip and stories about the royals.

For example, he heard that Andrew once snapped at a footman waking him up in the morning.

Mr Parry told the documentary: “As part of a footman’s duty you had to, first of all, take a calling tray into a royal’s private bedroom.

“And on one occasion, I remember one of the more senior footmen telling me he took this tray into the Duke of York’s bedroom, opened the curtains and said: ‘Good morning your Royal Highness’ and he was greeted with a ‘f*** off!’.”

Meanwhile, he also heard that Princess Anne allegedly berated a clumsy member of the household as a “f***ing incompetent t***”.

The Queen, on the other hand, apparently insisted on “mucking in” when the royals would go out for a picnic.

Mr Russell said: “There might be some function that involved a picnic and the Queen will say: ‘We’ll all muck in.’

“But of course, there’s mucking in in some directions and there’s mucking in others.

“I mean, in actual fact it’s quite well-known that the Duke of Edinburgh might well turn a sausage, but he wont wash the plate on the sausage landed on.”

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