RICHARD KAY: Tall Paul… keeper of the Queen’s secrets

Even on a day full of historical significance, it was still one of the most stunning images to emerge from this remarkable procession from Buckingham Palace at Westminster Hall on Wednesday.

Tall and erect as the ceremonial guards around him stood an unmistakable figure the queenthe most loyal, the most dedicated and the longest serving.

Bald and pigtailed, Paul Whybrew, who was with the Queen at the end of her life, was the picture of iron determination. His hands were clasped, he looked neither left nor right, but focused only forward as he marched in step in front of the horse-drawn carriage carrying his lover’s coffin.

He was one of only three male members of Her Majesty’s Household Staff invited to join the cortege – but his placement in the middle of the crowd emphasized not only his seniority, but his unique position in the Queen’s life.

She could quite simply get by without anyone but the man she affectionately knew as ‘Tall Paul’ – and his decades of continuous service proved it.

At 6ft 4in, he was naturally hard to ignore. But it wasn’t his height that made him so indispensable. On the contrary, through all the domestic crises, family storms, and petty squabbles between staff and courtiers, he was never attracted and escaped unscathed.

In fact, he was said to have every friend and no enemy among the royal family, whom he had served since the age of 19. And in the gossipy, underhanded world of royal preferences, where favorites jostle each other, that’s a remarkable achievement in itself.

It was Paul who handed the Queen the phone for those painful calls from Prince Harry that rang from California. Paul, who set up Radio Times with the times of her favorite television programs ringing thoughtfully. And it was Paul who, when she stopped drinking, swapped apple juice for her former drink of gin and Dubonnet.

The son of a bank manager, he was 44 years old with the Queen, and as she saw records fall as our longest-reigning monarch, so did Paul. A year ago he became the longest-serving member of the Queen’s staff at Buckingham Palace, awarded the Royal Victorian Order and Medal – silver and gold – for long and loyal service.

She also has her own comfortably furnished rooms, for which she personally paid the renovation costs. When the Queen turned 80 in 2006 and decided to spend more time at Windsor Castle, she asked him to move too. He gave up his modest apartment above the old stables at Kensington Palace for a house near Albert Lodge in Windsor Great Park.

‘The Queen told him to decorate it to his taste and send her the bill. She said she wanted him to be comfortable,” says the friend.

The move was a pivotal moment in his life in royal service. It was the only time he stopped to reflect on his years of devotion. Inevitably, he stayed.

As Page of the Backstairs and Serjeant at Arms, Whybrew, who will be 64 next year, has devoted his entire working life to the monarch. Unlike many other servants who move between households, Paul has remained steadfast at the Queen’s side.

He arrived just after the Silver Jubilee, was there for the Golden Jubilee in 2002, the Diamond Jubilee when the Queen shivered on a rain-soaked Thames in 2012, and just a few months back at this year’s Platinum Jamboree.

He was there during some of the darkest moments of her reign, the years of marital strife between her children and some of the most uplifting.

And of course it was Paul who was pictured accompanying the Queen and James Bond star Daniel Craig as part of the magic trick that opened the London Olympics.

He also played a key role in one of the most infamous incidents, when an intruder broke into the palace in 1982 and made his way undetected into the bedroom of the sleeping queen.

When the alarm was raised, it was Whybrew who calmly took the offender to the butler’s pantry, poured him a glass of whiskey and then detained him until the police arrived.

Laughter was often heard. As the Queen watched heavy rain fall on the day in April 1986 when the royal family buried the Duchess of Windsor, the former American adventurer Wallis Simpson, she worried that the open grave would fill with water.

Turning to Paul and another aide, she joked, “If we don’t save her, we’ll launch her.”

All these years of service were not without sacrifices. He remained single, “married” only, say his friends, to his duty. But in return he occupied one of the most interesting seats in modern British history.

Growing up in Essex, there was no tradition of working for the Royal Family. His grandfather was a drapery manager and fitter, and his brother is a lawyer. Paul, the second oldest of four siblings, was born in Braintree in 1959.

The family moved to Frinton on the Essex coast and by the time he left nearby Clacton High School he was ready for a royal job.

His first position was as a junior footman, but he was quickly noticed by the Queen because of his way with corgis.

The promotion was said to be the source of his nickname and would see him working alongside another royal favorite, Paul Burrell, who later became Princess Diana’s butler. To distinguish between the two men, the Queen christened Burrell ‘little Paul’ and Whybrew ‘tall Paul’. The look of affection remained.

As recently as this week, his presence accompanied by recumbent people was noticed on social networks. One posted: ‘Tall Paul, her trusted site.’

Another wrote: “At the head of the procession walking behind the band is this man – the Queen’s Page and Sergeant Paul Whybrew. He has been at the Queen’s side for 44 years of her 70-year reign. Both companion and servant. Now I accompany her for the last time.”

Over the years, staff have come and gone, but Whybrew has been a constant presence in the Queen’s household. His position and the trust placed in him by the Queen earned him another nickname – “Keeper of the Queen’s Secrets”.

Few doubt that he will ever spill them. This makes the contrast between the servant and another of her circle, her senior dresser and personal assistant Angela Kelly, all the more fascinating.

If the daughter of a Liverpool crane operator is gregarious and brags about her closeness to the Queen, Whybrew is discreet and modest.

He’s unlikely to accept a three-book deal like Miss Kelly’s – two already published, the third still pending. And while Angela longed to become a woman, according to friends, Whybrew didn’t want that kind of personal advancement.

“He knew he could walk into any job in the private sector and earn much more than he does now, but it never crossed his mind,” a friend told me.

He felt his place was with the queen as long as she wanted him and the fact is she always wanted him. She trusted him unconditionally and he knew everything, but he never told.’

When the Queen came up with the poignant idea of ​​embedding Prince Philip’s symbol in a stained glass window as a tribute to her late husband, Paul found the perfect spot – the anteroom off one of the main private reception rooms. at Sandringham House.

Frinton-on-Sea, a quiet seaside town frequented by Princess Margaret, is very proud of a local boy who has become the Queen’s rock.

Paul’s mother Jean died almost exactly a year ago aged 88, while his father Derrick, who wrote the history of the local Baptist church, is a respected community elder.

It is a remarkable comment on the Queen’s long life that of all the men of power and influence with whom she befriended, and of all the well-born and expensively educated people who surround the royal family, it is the humble son of an Essex bank manager, with whom she was often the most relaxed and the happiest.