You Rang, Madam?
The English writer, William Somerset Maugham, once wrote: “American women expect to find in their husbands a perfection that English women only hope to find in their butlers.”
These days more and more women and men, American and English, are finding a personal butler can add a little something extra in their hotel suites and cruise ship cabins. From the routine to outlandish, they are at their guests’ beck and call.
A friend and his wife just had a once-in-a-lifetime stay in a luxury hotel penthouse suite in south Florida.
“Did you get a butler?” I asked eagerly when they returned.
“Nothing so vulgar,” said my friend’s wife, “we had a personal assistant.”
“What did he do?” I pressed.
“Just about anything we asked,” said my friend.
“But didn’t he … sort of … you know … get in the way?”
“Oh no, discretion personified.”
The various butler schools around the world say the ideal ‘Jeeves’ should have excellent social and communication skills; good manners and etiquette; organisational and management skills; initiative, dependability, and good judgement;
diplomacy, tact and discretion and a good knowledge of wines, spirits and food.
Or, as Hugh Hefner’s English butler, William Smith, put it: “A good butler anticipates what a person needs before he knew he needed it.”
by Andy Moreton
