Curtains For Randy Andy

As a former Buckingham Palace employee reveals that “spoilt” Prince Andrew made her run up four flights of stairs to shut his curtains whilst he sat next to them, we suggest it’s now curtains for him

Yesterday, a former Buckingham Palace maid named Charlotte Briggs told The Sun of her former boss Prince Andrew: “This man fought for his country in the Falklands, but couldn’t stand up to close his own curtains. It was utterly ridiculous, but spoke volumes.”

Continuing of a man who made her run up four flights of stairs to close curtains he was actually himself sat next to, Briggs added:

“I’d been there six months when the job to become Andrew’s maid came up. He’d moved back to the Palace after his divorce from Fergie.”

“Nobody wanted the job because of his reputation for tantrums and sweary outbursts. It didn’t put me off. I thought: ‘Sod it, I’m going to go for it.’ I’d moved down from Yorkshire to Buckingham Palace and wanted to take on the challenge, to look after the royals.”

“The first few months I hadn’t seen many royals. Most of my time was spent focusing on offices. I’d seen Edward on my first day. He opened the door for me to empty some bins and was lovely. But this was my opportunity to do what I’d come to London to do.”

“I’d not been there long – not long enough to look after a royal – but I thought I’m going to do it and I got the job.”

“Really you weren’t actually meant to be seen, you’d just sneak in and do stuff. But he was a bit lazy and he would call down from his office and say: ‘Can you send the maid to shut the curtains.’ They were literally behind him and massive – from floor to ceiling and as high as a house. But he refused to get up and close them himself.”

“I’d have to get on my evening dress, run up four flights of stairs and he’d be sitting there at his desk right next to them.”

“One night I’d done it all, I walked back into the corridor and he came out screaming: ‘Can’t you f***ing do anything right?’ I’d left a little gap where they met but they were extremely heavy.”

“I was thinking: ‘You want to shut your own curtains,’ but you can’t say anything. You have to absorb it. It was awful and he brought me to tears. I was only 21 and had little life experience.”

“In Yorkshire if a lad were to come home and insist on someone else drawing blinds he’d get a clip round the ear. He wouldn’t get away with that up here. That’s what folk do. They stand on their own two feet and get on with it.

“I was a young woman, much smaller than him, and I hadn’t served in the Navy. Yet, he sat at his desk and insisted on someone else pulling his curtains. I’d be embarrassed.”

“I’d looked after ladies-in-waiting and they’d just do things by themselves. They were lovely. But Andrew was extremely demanding. Everything had to be immaculate and he threw his weight around. I often tried to hide.”

“I’d see him come out and hide behind the curtains and think: ‘Right, he’s gone.’”

“I used to call him Sir, but not Your Royal Highness. I didn’t think he deserved it. He ruined my time at the Palace and made it miserable.”

“The others were lovely. Charles and Edward, especially. They weren’t anything like Andrew.”

“I bumped into the Duke of Edinburgh in the corridor and he was so nice and gentlemanly. I was even hugged by Nelson Mandela. Andrew was a world away from him. You couldn’t get a bigger contrast.”

“Nelson Mandela appreciated everything he had and never underestimated the huge responsibility he had as a human being. Andrew was just entitled. Everyone knew he was horrible. I’ve worked with all the other royals and they are really nice.”

“Prince Andrew was my main guy but I also worked at Sandringham for Prince Charles just before Princess Diana died. Charles was so nice and caring. He showed empathy and kindness.”

“But Andrew was just arrogant and it’s a shame because it probably ruined my experience. Maybe if I hadn’t worked for him I would have stayed longer working for the royals. If I had worked for another one, like Charles or Edward, I think I would have enjoyed it much more.”

Prince Andrew’s most ridiculous remarks

“I could have worse tags than ‘Airmiles Andy’ – although I don’t know what they are.”

“People say to me: ‘Would you like to swap your life with me for 24 hours? Your life must be very strange.’ But, of course, I have not experienced any other life. It’s not strange to me.”

“There’s a slight problem with the sweating because I have a peculiar medical condition which is that I don’t sweat or I didn’t sweat at the time and that was… was it… yes, I didn’t sweat at the time because I had suffered what I would describe as an overdose of adrenalin in the Falkland’s War when I was shot at and I simply… it was almost impossible for me to sweat. And it’s only because I have done a number of things in the recent past that I am starting to be able to do that again. So, I’m afraid to say that there’s a medical condition that says that I didn’t do it so therefore…”

“We can’t be certain as to whether or not that’s my hand on her whatever it is, left… left side … [of the photograph with Virginia Roberts] Nobody can prove whether or not that photograph has been doctored but I don’t recollect that photograph ever being taken.”

“I went [to Jeffrey Epstein’s house] with the sole purpose of saying to him that because he had been convicted, it was inappropriate for us to be seen together. And I had a number of people counsel me in both directions, either to go and see him or not to go and see him and I took the judgement call that because this was serious and I felt that doing it over the telephone was the chicken’s way of doing it. I had to go and see him and talk to him.”

“[Jeffrey Epstein’s house] was a convenient place to stay. I mean I’ve gone through this in my mind so many times. At the end of the day, with a benefit of all the hindsight that one can have, it was definitely the wrong thing to do. But at the time I felt it was the honourable and right thing to do and I admit fully that my judgment was probably coloured by my tendency to be too honourable but that’s just the way it is.”

“I’ve always been told I was extremely well behaved as a kid.”

“If you’re a man it is a positive act to have sex with somebody. You have to … take some sort of positive action and so therefore if you try to forget it’s very difficult to try and forget a positive action and I do not remember anything.”

“It’s slightly complicated for people to grasp the idea of a head of state in human form.”

And finally, stating the bloody obvious: “Today is reality. Yesterday is history.”