All Terrain Thinking

A Compendium of things I think are Important

Wonderful strange stories from around the world

The Business of Pleasure, a conversation

by Keith Baker

The spirit house outside the Imperial Queen's Park Hotel is slightly bigger than my first apartment. Believe me, these spirits have got it made. With a nice view overlooking the park, it wouldn't surprise me if, under that little wooden roof, there was an ensuite bathroom, tiny “Emporium” scatter cushions, and cable TV.

From the park, there is a discreet path that leads to the back of the hotel, which passes this spiritual condo, and then up the stairs into a restaurant with polite food. I remember the roast lamb being impeccable; it was a lamb you could have taken anywhere.

There is also a small sign by the glass door which reads, “Hotel guests are welcome to use the gate into the park, which closes at 8 p.m.” It's all so civilized-----and a far cry from the scruffy, beer –stained sign nailed on to the back door of my student lodgings in London which read, “Please don't vomit on the floor, what do you think the seats are for?”

I have to confess that I use this impressive hotel as a short cut to my humble abode a few meters from the main entrance. After walking through the slum that is Klong Toey, it's comforting---once I've got rid of the guilt-----to feel the cool opulence of the marble floors, and to breathe the scent of expense, after the stench of poverty.

One of the house butlers, Keith Dellar, has noticed my regular deviations, because, as a butler, he sees everything. He also knows that I know that he knows it. It's all part of his job.

We've been on friendly terms for some years now, and I often call out, “Good evening squire,” to him across the hotel lobby, which, these days, seems crammed with Japanese tourists. He may often reply with, “Good evening my lord we're a dying,” over their heads. Being dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, it's always a buzz to be referred to in that language, and even more of a buzz to see the Japanese looking totally bewildered at the interchange.

Keith Dellar and Julio Duque are full-time resident butlers; positions they have held since 1992, when they were asked by Akorn Hoontrakul-----the then head of the Imperial Group, whom they had met in London that year----to come to Thailand . It was a shrewd move, and stamped with the class it delivered.

I had many questions for Keith; questions I'd always wanted to ask a butler, but had never had the chance because, somehow, I'd never actually got around to having a butler of my own.

Resplendent in their formal morning dress, with a fresh rose in their respective buttonholes, roaming the restaurants and hovering in the grand lobby, do they sometimes get mistaken for being the manager?

“Oh yes, often,” says Keith. “We've also been mistaken for wedding guests and classical conductors. Some guests even ask me if I'm the owner.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Not a bit. But it might bother him,” he said grinning.

As professional butlers for over forty years, both Dellar and Duque treat everyone as an equal, whether they be of the landed gentry or those who have just landed gently, a titled gentleman, or the third wife of a Toyota dealer from Cambodia . It makes no difference. Why?

Because they are paying.

Ah. So the customer, even if he's an arrogant prat who can't even spell the word “manners” and doesn't have a clue what's going on around him, is always right. Right?

“Absolutely,yes,” says Keith with complete conviction.

I would have a big problem with that. In fact I do have a big problem with that—and it's one of the reasons why I've never worked in the service industry.

I simply don't have the right disposition. I would rather dig ditches than serve table. And I have. I find it impossible to serve people who are ruder and more arrogant than either the people I work for, or with.

And to be honest, I'm not such a good guest either.

Whenever I get the rare chance to stay in a quality hotel, I don't so much occupy a room as disturb it. I immediately turn everything on, and then steal everything in the bathroom---including the sewing kit and those cotton wool thingies. After all, there's no crime like the present, and what's more, one is actually paying for the privilege to pilfer. I always look twice at the sumptuous bath robes, but I know I'll get sprung. And when I'm guilty, I blush. Even when there's no one around.

However, there's always one rule, shared by millions. Never touch the mini bar. I have worked out that if you drank and ate everything in the mini bar of a downtown Tokyo hotel, it would equal the gross national output of a small African country---and that's in a good year.

“We do have our ways at getting back at the truly rude,” Keeth conceded, looking inscrutable. I raised an eyebrow in conspiratorial hope. But nothing doing. No trade secrets.

But this is to miss the point. Taking care of people, rather than merely serving them, are two very different things. “The essence of being a butler is to make sure everything is in order, from beginning to end,” Keith explains.

A butler doesn't serve at a table, but will notice from a thousand paces that a foreign minister's champagne glass may need refilling---and with the slightest nod to a waiter, it's done.

Neither is a butler a manager. Despite his knowledge of wines, cutlery, cuisine, and etiquette----the very arts of service---he is, in essence, a professional socialiser who's role is both intimate and courteous.

And these two men should know, for they have worked at the very highest echelons of British society, in the fine houses and grand estates belonging to the Duke of Marlborough, the Duke of Westminster, the Duke of Norfolk, and many more. Keith maintains that the British aristocracy are still the best people to work for: “They are down to earth and real, unlike the nouveau riche, who may own beautiful homes, but it's all terribly artificial. One is there simply for show.

Indeed. For discretion, one of the hallmarks of a true butler, can't apply if the employer is incapable of being discrete.

They have also been in the employ of the British royal family, especially Princess Diana and the Queen Mother-----who was famous for her fondness for dry Martinis, public service, and wicked sense of humor.

Years ago, Keith told me, she would host regular parties at Clarence House in London . On one occasion, the Queen's dress designers had been invited, including Hardy Amies, Norman Hartwell, and the like---gentleman all, and all tactfully described as “light on their feet.” At one point, the Queen Mother went upstairs, leaving the men drinking and chatting away. For some reason she couldn't come down at once, and said loudly, “When you queens have finished down there, there's an old queen who wants a gin and tonic up here.”

So, what are the best parts of the job? Or was that one of them?

“When I worked in the grander households, the best part was that you always saw people at their best,” says Keith. “They were either entertaining, or being entertained.”

And if they are saddened by anything, it is the slow decline in standards over the year---from manners to dress code. A leveling out. A dilution of excellence.

However, butlers are not are dying breed; it's the world for which they were originally trained that is the endangered species. As hospitality schools now turn out “professionals” after a mere two years, they are feeding a society that places show over depth, style over form, and noise over music.

Yet true butlers still retain their own code, and their own humor. They can turn things around if it suits them. Take the story of Lady Cunard, of the fabulous luxury liner fortune. One evening, she held a large and important dinner party at which her long-serving and badly-paid butler became very drunk.

Anxious and indignant, she scribbled something on a piece of paper and handed it to him. It said, “You are drunk. Please go to bed at once.” The butler took the note, nodded, swayed a bit, and walked around the table and handed the message to the British prime minister.

They say you should judge a hotel by the quality of its guests. I disagree. I believe it should be judged by the class of its staff.

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