Showing posts with label Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Backstairs Billy: The Queen Mum's Butler | Warner Bros. TV

Jul 15, 2024 | This is the story of a 15 year old boy who rose from lowly beginnings – an ironmonger’s son from County Durham obsessed with working for the Queen, to be the man who after 50 years with the Royal family knew all of their hidden secrets, and knew only too well the power that knowledge represented. As the Queen Mother’s Butler and key palace insider he saw and heard everything, but never told.

Now his story can be told for this first time. His life is one of obsession, power, politics, and hierarchy inside the royal circle.

But since his death, Tallon’s legacy has also revealed another side, a man split by loyalty, overrun by his sexuality, and feared by those who worked for him behind the palace’s closed doors. This we will explore, as well as the bon viveur the royal family so enjoyed.

Backstair’s Billy’s story will take us deeper ‘below the royal stairs world and hierarchy’ into the methods and rules of the waspish, bitchy world of ‘’behind the scenes’ in the royal household. With first-hand testimony from those who knew, loved, worked for, and came up against Bill Tallon, the film will show how he and his partner Reg were the ‘power couple’ whose position allowed them enormous influence and control over young servants and the household itself. Further, it will examine the controversy of Bill’s relationship with Princess Margaret and how that ultimately probably cost him his career, and special place within the Royal heart.

How after 50yrs service to the Windsors and closeness to the Queen Mother, he ended up ostracised by the Royal family, alone, in a tiny flat in Kensington.

This is the insider story of the key 'man in the background' - who knew the Queen Mother and the royals better than anyone else.


Sunday, February 04, 2024

Backstairs Billy: The Queen Mum's Butler

Feb 4, 2022 | Channel 4 (UK) documentary about William Tallon, nicknamed Backstairs Billy, who worked for the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother until her death in 2002. First shown Monday 2 February 2009.