My week with a royal maid

With the deaths of Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother earlier this year, employment offices around the country were suddenly faced with the difficult task of placing faithful royal retainers. When tiara polishing and newspaper ironing top the list of skills on your CV, life in the cold, hard world of commoners is not going to be easy.

Sandra Morgan sits at my Formica kitchen table in her neat black suit with a shiny brooch pinned to the lapel, clutching her handbag with both hands. Sandra, 43, was Princess Margaret's dresser until her death in February, and had spent 12 happy years managing her wardrobe of sherbet suits and taffeta ballgowns, all with matching shoes and handbags.

She also organised the Princess's fabulous collection of jewellery and knew everything about royal dress form. If it's the opening of Parliament next week, then out comes the enormous Poltimore tiara.

If the princess said, "I'll go vulgar tonight," Sandra knew that meant mega-wattage diamonds.

Now, like most of the Princess's household staff, which included an assistant dresser, housekeeper, housemaid, daily maid, butler, chef, chauffeur and kitchen maid, Sandra is looking for a job.

Not only was she "very, very sad" when the Princess passed away, but she also left a position packed with glamour, travel, a Kensington address and a roaring social life. Sandra had just finished a six-month position as dresser to an ancient heiress with a breathtaking couture collection dating back to the Forties when she accepted a week's work with me. From Berkeley Square to Clapham South, but it might as well have been Rajasthan.

Sandra and I spend our first hour together trying valiantly to find some common ground. There is none. The terraced house I share with my husband and two-and-a-half-year-old daughter is loud, chaotic, and run to something that could only loosely be described as a routine - I am also expecting a baby in three weeks.

It is like a million-odd other professional, time-poor London homes, but for Sandra, who once worked as a presser in a Bolton clothing factory before vaulting into the fairy-tale position as assistant dresser to the Princess, it is totally unknown territory.

She and I both know we have a huge task ahead of us. How do you take the very specific skills acquired in the rarefied world of Kensington Palace (or "KP" as I learned to call it) and adapt them to modern, middle-class life? As Sandra sips tea from a novelty mug and stares forlornly at a scuff mark on the linoleum, she sighs deeply and says: "I know I have to face the real world now."

The problem with the real world of MTV stylists and informal lifestyles is that only a handful of the wealthy, or titled people of a certain age, require the services of a dresser. What people want these days are professional multi-taskers: a housekeeper, dresser, cook and secretary rolled into one. "They call them life managers," explains Sandra, "it's certainly not what it used to be."

So what could Sandra, who charges £450 a week to live in, do for us over the next week?

I suggest a small drinks and kitchen supper party for eight friends. She looks horrified.

"You mean cook it myself, without caterers?" Okay then, how about a few canapès? She still looks nervous. "Well, I could always try, I suppose." Later that afternoon after she has settled into our nanny's old room at the top of the house, Sandra has brightened considerably. She cleverly suggests we enrol the services of her friend and former footman to the Queen Mother at Clarence House, Neil Smith, to help on the night of the party. "He'll even wear his uniform," she says. "And he is wonderful with drinks." Sold.

So, at 7.30pm on a Wednesday evening, Neil is greeting our startled guests with chilled glasses of champagne and the immortal words: "Mr and Mrs Lyons will be receiving you in the drawing room." Meanwhile, Sandra is beavering away in the kitchen preparing canapès from another era: quails' eggs and mayonnaise in tiny pastry cases, and smoked salmon and cream cheese pinwheels.

While Neil works the room with a champagne bottle wrapped in a white linen napkin, Sandra follows strict royal etiquette by remaining in the kitchen. "In royal households, I ask her later if she enjoyed the film Gosford Park, but she says she hated it and found it incredibly insulting. "A lot of people still think that being in service is like that, and some people today still treat you like dirt [although not at KP, she is at pains to point out]. In those days you had no choice but to go into service. Today you choose it as a profession," she adds, proudly.

Her illustrious job gave her the opportunity to taste "fine living" on countless trips abroad, accompanying the Princess on official visits and

even to her legendary holiday home in Mustique. If the payback was having to abide by certain outdated and silly little rules, then so be it. Remaining seen but not heard in the scullery while men serve guests is a small price to pay for international glamour.

Neil, who is now the caretaker of a block of flats in Mayfair, is also misty-eyed about his tenure in a royal household. He was one of 20 household staff at Clarence House, which included four footmen, an under-butler, a page and a steward.

"Oh, I absolutely loved it, it was like a big family," he says wistfully. "It was very institutionalised, but you could always go to someone's room for a glass of wine so we had a wonderful social life. Now, I'm afraid, I'm alone, and it has been quite difficult to adjust."

Neil left Clarence House five years ago to work as one of 30 staff at TV producer Aaron Spelling's 58,000 sq ft ode to Hollywood kitsch. "It was quite a shock and not at all fun," he says through pursed lips. "Let's just say that the Queen Mother was very relaxed and never demanded anything. The Spellings, however, were not. I believe people who aren't used to staff do tend to try too hard."

Attempting to affect relaxed royal nonchalance, I toast the success of an immensely enjoyable time-warp party with Sandra and try to figure out our next challenge. How can she adapt the skills she has learned in the Princess's dressing room to my own bedroom bomb site?

I have spent the past six months woefully neglecting my wardrobe while I slob about in "attractive" maternity trousers and distressed T-shirts. Sandra takes one look at the tangled pile of summer clothes and evening wear and a couple of winter coats, sighs heavily and launches her attack.

"Of course, in a proper house," she says, pausing to gauge my reaction, "all of these clothes would be arranged seasonally, cleaned, pressed and ready to be worn."

The Princess would sometimes require three changes each day for lunch, afternoon and evening appointments, so Sandra always had a selection of appropriate outfits and matching accessories ready for her to choose from. While this chocolate-box approach to dressing would clearly not be necessary for me in my current state, I did rather like the idea of an immaculate wardrobe.

Sandra spent the next two days sorting, sponging, steaming, stitching and pressing until I barely recognised my clothes.

She then applied the same professional treatment to the bags of old baby clothes we had dragged down from the attic - so the new arrival could look every bit as pristine as blueblooded progeny. This is where Sandra truly came into her own, and when I experienced the glorious epiphany of being treated like a princess.

My week with Sandra may have begun awkwardly, but by Friday we had relaxed into a semi-routine that I'm sure would have matured. Sandra was also very useful in helping with my daughter, whose nanny was on holiday for a week. She quite happily babysat and gave her a taste for retro food.

The experience, however, made me realise I don't need a royal dresser (although to use her services twice a year would be heavenly), but I do need someone who can cook, clean, nanny, baby-sit, organise our diary, pay bills, plump cushions, do the weekly shop and run countless errands.

In other words, I need a wife.

Sandra Morgan can be contacted through Town and Country Agency on 020 7590 9635, and Neil Smith through Beauchamp Bureau (020 7259 6999).