The Final Touch Of Class - A Butler

[Guest Tim]

THE FINAL TOUCH OF CLASS - A BUTLER

 

Australia’s nouveau-riche have tried having live-in butlers and it doesn’t work. In the heady days when house-painters became millionaire tycoons, it was thought the final accolade to ‘arriving’ was to employ a Jeeves.

 

British-born Josephine Ive, who trains this nation’s butlers, says: "It happened, but it was just a passing phase. The new-rich, suddenly finding themselves with all this money, decided a butler might be a good thing. But they found great difficulty having somebody living in and running their lives. They weren’t used to that.

 

"The English gentry, of course, have been used to having staff around them. They see them as part of the family. But the nouveaux here had been only used to having daily help, or regular window cleaners, or somebody who came in to polish the car. They decided it was best to have live-out butlers instead."

 

Josephine Ive charges trainee butlers $1,800 for a three-weeks course where, in 12-hour days, they learn there is no such word as ‘subservience’, that they must anticipate their employer’s wishes by recognising their body language; they must be able to choose a fine wine, know how to fold napkins (the Elf’s Shoe is Ms Ive’s favourite); learn how to put on a gentleman’s jacket gently. And to graciously accept a tip. "The butler must never look at the gratuity. He slips it unobtrusively into his pocket with just a small nod of recognition that the transaction has taken place. The last thing he must do is glance at what he has in his hand."

 

Since she began training butlers and valets at her Kew,Melbourne, home in 1987, Ms Ive has schooled more than 100 Jeeves and helped place them in old-money homes, embassies and hotels. Because she runs Australia’s only butlers’ school she is in demand to train butlers and valets for hotels in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and China. Last week she was unpacking from her most recent school at the new 450-room Grande Sukhumvit in Bangkok. Staff from two Sheratons in China have been down to Kew for training and soon she’s flying off to Beijing. She has been asked to tutor staff for the Oriental in Bangkok, ‘which I found a real surprise.’

 

Ms Ive’s father was in service in a grand home and her grandmother was cook to a famous aircraft designer. "So it is in my blood." She trained first as a chef, and opened her own catering establishment where she served the Queen on royal visits to Winchester. Then for the next seven years she worked as an itinerant butler, travelling about Britain with judges, dressing them for court. She, herself, dressed in a black suit, white shirt, black stockings and shoes, and with a small ribbon tie and a brooch. Her own butlers are encouraged to have expensive, tailored suits in dark grey or navy-blue; never brown or green. "Unfortunately, we butlers all have expensive tastes."

 

Arriving in Australia 10 years ago she was astonished that there was such a demand for butlers. "After all, Australia is so egalitarian in its approach." Finding nobody was training them she created ‘Magnums’ school and wrote a manual which covers ‘speech and deportment, awkward situations, good manners and protocol.’

 

She teaches a valet to remove a stain on a jacket, to be able to polish shoes, pack a suitcase, hang clothes, tie a bow-tie and serve at table. Torturers would never get from Josphine the names of families employing her graduates, but one recently ‘came out’. Butler Richard Neville who serves at Cairns’ new Reef Hotel Casino, disclosed that after he left Ms Ive he served breakfast to Madonna, played Scrabble with Janet Jackson’s mother and looked after Australia’s Governor-General.

 

Neville, 40, has also ‘looked after’ Peter Ustinov, Victor Borge and a visiting Saudi Arabian prince. "I’ve dealt with so many high-profile people I tend to forget." When a fierce electrical storm struck Brisbane, he was called to comfort a terrified Kathleen Jackson at The Heritage Hotel. They played Scrabble all night.

 

Neville hasn’t forgotten the training Ms Ive gave him. "I wouldn’t touch anyone, never give them a massage and I wouldn’t help anyone with sexual services.. when you are with someone in a room behind closed doors you’d be amazed what happens. You’re very isolated and very vulnerable."