Through the keyhole at the Palace

For generations, 'living like royalty' has been the phrase by which ordinary people have focused their envies and ambitions.

But with yesterday's unscheduled and very intimate exposure of what life is really like behind the gold-tipped gates of Buckingham Palace, those aspirations may not seem quite so tempting.

As the Queen reeled from the shock of discovering that an undercover reporter (with camera) had spent two months as a royal footman, her subjects were treated to an unprecedented pictorial tour of her home

along with a detailed first-hand account of the Royal Family's lifestyle.

It isn't just the faded opulence and the sheer dreariness of routine inside the world's most famous palace that will disappoint romantics, but the constant theme of yearning for another place or clinging to another era.

In the first-floor dining room at breakfast time, the Queen loses herself in the Racing

Post while Philip has his ear to a small and ageing transistor radio, as permanent a fixture on the table as the bowl of flowers and the marmalade, maple syrup or honey.

The cornflakes and porridge oats flow, not from gold and silver caskets, but from Tupperware containers.

On one side stands a very Seventies-style anglepoise lamp, on the other, at arm's length on its own table, an old-fashioned telephone.

These are constant reminders of bygone years when the lives of the royals were so much gentler and less troubled. The Queen, it must be said, will be very troubled that the most intimate sanctuary of her life has been embarrassingly invaded by a reporter who did not even have to change the name by which he writes in a national daily newspaper to be put on her staff.

His disclosures are far worse than Bagehot's famous warning: 'We must not let daylight in upon the magic.' They are the harsh exposure of lives which are, fundamentally, no different from our own, apart from an air of decay. And with that, the magic begins to evaporate.

But saddest of all are the bleak efforts to hold on to a past which is rooted in Edwardian pomp and ceremony and totally anachronistic to modern times.

For example, there are maps for each of the Royal Family's tea trays, setting out precisely where each item is always to be placed, according to individual whim.

And there are moments when the Queen at home in Buckingham Palace, doing nothing more complicated than having tea, is tended by no less than ten servants - two footmen, two kitchen porters, two chefs, two silver pantry under-butlers, a page and a coffeeroom maid.

On one observed occasion the maid waited two and a half hours to collect a pot of coffee from a hot plate and poured it into a silver jug. She then placed the jug on a tray which was carried 20 metres to the page's vestibule and handed to a page. He then carried it 8 metres to the Queen.

This is the Queen's home and the Queen's life and, it has to be conceded, she is as entitled to live as she wishes in her own home as the rest of us.

But what about her children, all grown-up and meant to have found independence. Far from suffering from empty nest syndrome, the Queen and Prince Philip are still surrounded by their children (apart from Charles), all of whom have apartments there.

Of course, the attraction of hanging on to a presumably rent-free apartment, complete with servants, at the best address in London, is obvious. And looking at their rooms it is clear that the royal children - albeit parents in their own right these days - have settled in to Buckingham Palace for the long haul.

SO RELUCTANT is Prince Andrew, 43, to accept change, that he insists the outer door to his apartment on what is known as the Chamber Floor, is still labelled 'The Duke and Duchess of York' even though he and Fergie were divorced seven years ago. Dozens of pictures of her fill the suite of rooms.

His bedroom - grey carpet, striped rose- coloured walls - is notable for two domestic touches in a room that reeks of bachelordom. One is a large photograph of the Queen holding him as a child; the other is a pillow embroidered with the word 'Daddy' from his two daughters, the Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie.

A picture of his father Prince Philip in naval uniform stands on the mantlepiece of the open fireplace.

Other reminders of his children are cuddly toys sitting on a sofa and an armchair, including a yellow hippo and Paddington Bear.

Next door, his sitting room is filled with photographs of the children and of his ex-wife. Upturned military shell cases - he was a Navy helicopter pilot in the Gulf War - serve as ashtrays.

On a gold-coloured sofa there are two embroidered cushions. One bears the message, 'Eat, sleep and re-marry', the other the kitsch observation, 'Before you meet your real prince you have to kiss a lot of frogs'.

Prince Andrew lacks for nothing when he is living at his parents' palace. Food and drink, ice and slices of lemon, as well as newspapers, are always at hand.

Every morning he is awoken by a footman who sets down a 'calling tray' containing a pot of tea, and a china cup and saucer, draws his curtains and informs him that breakfast is ready. Sometimes Andrew's charmless response, as light floods the darkened room, is to tell the unfortunate servant to 'f*** off'.

Andrew's arrivals through the palace gates are noted for the speed with which he skids across the gravel in his green Aston Martin. The car door is always opened for him to get in and out.

And despite his longtime friendship with businesswoman Amanda Staveley, he continues to be visited at Buckingham Palace by pretty girls using false names.

One recent caller who explained breathlessly that she had just cycled from Shepherd's Bush - about four miles - was ushered through in the name 'Miss Monroe'.

Andrew greeted her at the front door of his apartment with the words: 'Ah, you snuck in. How are you?'

And what about Prince Edward?

The apartment he shares with Sophie is more modern and neater, with a striped sunshine yellow bedspread and pale yellow walls. But just whose are the little soft toys on the bed and on the sofa at its foot? Unless, of course, they were awaiting the arrival of the new baby.

Theirs is the kind of boring, green-walled bathroom which prospective purchasers looking over a house would make a note to rip out the moment they move in.

THEY would keep the cartoon above the loo, however. It shows the Queen addressing an audience of penguins, with the caption: 'All agreed? I'll file a complaint to the Press Council.'

There is one major difference between their bedroom and Prince Andrew's - a wall of books in a large bookcase, where the works include two volumes of How Things Work and a thick world atlas.

On the bedside table is an intriguing trio of pictures.

The closest to the bed shows Andrew and Fergie on their 1986 wedding day, the furthest Diana in her wedding dress, flanked by Edward and Andrew who were their brother Charles's supporters. The third is a christening scene, probably of himself 39 years ago.

A fourth picture, facing out from among the books, is the wedding group at his own marriage to Sophie Rhys-Jones.

Unlike Andrew, the Earl and Countess of Wessex are popular with the staff. Footmen speak highly of Sophie because, they say, she is always kind and grateful.

Not so gentle with them, however, is Princess Anne, who is usually to be found at her palace apartment without her second husband, Commodore Tim Laurence.

One senior footman recalls the time he made an error when arranging something for her. She hurled abuse at him as he fled. 'F****** incompetent t***' she was bellowing as he disappeared down the corridor.

At the same time, the Princess, unlike her siblings, rarely makes petty demands on the servants, and they quite like her for it.

But she is emphatically particular about one thing - her fruit bowl.

At all times it must contain at least one very ripe - indeed black - banana, and a very soft, ripe kiwi fruit.

Her apartment takes a lot of tidying. Every surface in her rooms is covered with books, magazines, paperwork and ornaments.

Charles, of course, long ago retreated to the comforts of his own home in London, and since moving from St James's Palace to Clarence House, where the Queen Mother used to live, he can claim to live in sumptuous comfort that mirrors his lofty station.

He has been helped, however, by some £5million of taxpayers' money, and the home's transformation (with the help of the imaginative Mrs Camilla Parker Bowles) is a very good reason why, when Charles becomes King, he is far more likely to stay put than move to the big house at the top of the Mall.

All in all, the private family rooms at Buckingham Palace have more of the faded stately home about them than the grandiose palace represented by the state rooms that President Bush and his wife Laura saw yesterday.

Mercifully the Belgian Suite, this week's presidential accommodation, has the chandeliered sumptuousness of a five-star hotel.

But even the weather this week seemed to be fighting the cause of presenting the Queen's home in its best light.

In January or February perhaps, the palace fires would have been gloriously lit.

But it has been so mild recently that imitation flames, cut out astonishingly in white card, were still occupying the grate just before the President and Mrs Bush arrived.