In January 1992 I reported for duty as the newest recruit to the Metropolitan Police Royalty Protection Department (RPD) at Buckingham Palace. I had undergone an intense training program at the RPD training unit which included advice on the etiquette required of Officers in the presence of members of the British Royal Family including ‘only speak when spoken too’ and a detailed brief on the rich history surrounding the British Monarchs, their families and their Palaces. Uniformed Officers of the RPD are the Officers you will see at the entrance gates to Buckingham Palace, St James Palace, Kensington Palace in London, Windsor Castle Berkshire and Balmoral Castle Royal Deeside Scotland, they are the first point of contact for all visitors, the public and all deliveries to the British Royal Palaces. If you come into contact with RPD Officers you will be impressed by their immaculate presentation and their helpful, friendly attitude towards you, which in no way reduces their effectiveness as Policemen who are armed professionals alert to any attempt to breach the outer security ring for the Palaces and their occupants.
Buckingham Palace is known all around the world and is often the first port of call for tourists visiting London and the United Kingdom. The Palace consists of over 600 rooms built around an inner courtyard known as the Quadrangle. The enclosed walled gardens to the rear have their own lake and have 45 acres of manicured lawns and gardens, the Palace has it’s very own Police Station with a state of the art control room and accommodation for the sizeable Police Unit of men and woman hidden away from public and Royal view. It was to this Police Station that I reported for duty to on my first day with the Department in January 1992.
New Recruits need to know their way around and when the Palace closes down for the day in late evening and after the Royal Family have retired to their apartments the new recruit is taken around the endless corridors and rooms by the Watchmen of the Palace Fire Unit as they do there rounds. In my case I was introduced to an elderly Liverpudlian gentleman by the name of Ted who showed me around the labyrinth of corridors and rooms. That weekend when the Royal family had gone to Windsor Ted showed me into the comfortable private rooms of the HM the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, what struck me most was the huge four poster Royal Bed draped in lush fabrics depicting the Royal Cypher scrunched high above the bed and held by a wood carving of the rose of England, the Thistle of Scotland, the leek of Wales and the harp of Ireland surmounted by the Crown.
This is the bed that Michael Fagan was reported to have sat on while he engaged the Queen in conversation during his famous break-in at the Palace in 1982. Fagan had been seen climbing over the Palace railings in the early morning by a passing off-duty Police Sergeant on his way home from nearby Scotland Yard who immediately informed the Palace Police alerting them to the intruder. A search was conducted but the Officers on duty concluded that there was no intruder, and the search was stood down. Every one of these Officers would later pay a price for their mistake and dereliction to duty.
The story goes that Fagan had in fact entered the open first floor window of one of the most valuable stamp collections in the world but had found the door to the inner corridor locked. He is then believed to have gone out the window again and crawled to the next window and entered, this time the inner door was unlocked and he made his way quickly to the Royal apartments in the North wing and somehow found his way into the Queens bedroom, by some twist of fate the guard outside Her Majesty’s bedroom had gone for a cup of tea a few minutes earlier. What actually happened in the room may never be fully known, but as I understand it the Queen was very calm and offered Fagan a glass of sherry, which she poured for him herself. Eventually a Royal Dresser entered the adjoining dressing room and upon hearing voices raised the alarm. Palace Police then responded and Fagan was arrested for burglary, all but the arresting Officer were disciplined and sent out to Divisional duties far from Buckingham Palace. The arresting Officer, the tallest Policeman I have ever known was rewarded by the Queen who requested that he be the Metropolitan RPD Officer in charge of the front gate at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, where he remained until his retirement.
Michael Fagan’s picture hangs in the parade room of the Buckingham Palace Police Station because his actions, and his actions alone were responsible for a security review at all the Royal Palaces resulting in the creation of the RPD and the provision of the largest multi million pound budget in the Metropolitan Police for the provision of 24/7 manpower, the installation of the most up to date security CCTV and computerised alarm systems in and around all of the Royal Palaces and updated to this day. I might add that the investigation of the time-line of Michael Fagan’s incursion into Buckingham Palace found that he went direct from the entry point to the Queen’s bedroom leading investigators to conclude that he may have had prior knowledge of the layout of the Palace and the location of the Royal Apartments. When the Palace opened to the public Michael Fagan was one of the first visitors to enter.
When Ted and I left the Royal Apartments we made our way through the huge double doors onto the long corridor that runs the full length of the east front which was completed in Portland stone by architect Edward Blore in 1847 and faces the Mall, this is the frontage of the Palace familiar to the public today. The famous balcony where the Royal Family greet their public after special Royal events opens out from the central room on this floor and we were walking along the corridor that overlooks the inner quadrangle that lies behind the Mall facing rooms. Ted does not switch on the lights as he patrols as the light switch boards are huge and are often hidden away in panelling. Instead Ted and I were using flash lamps and the half light shining in from the courtyard to find our path. Ghosts, do you believe in ghosts? I didn’t until that night, but Buckingham Palace by the light of a flash lamp is a spooky place, it was first built for John Sheffield the 1st Duke of Buckingham in 1702 as a horse shoe shaped building built of red brick, the shell of this original house was used by architect John Nash who refurbished the house in the 1820s as a Palace for King George IV in Bath stone. The King never got to live in it and when he died the British Monarchy was £28000 in debt. In 1837 Queen Victoria came to the throne and made the short journey from Kensington Palace becoming the first Monarch to occupy Buckingham Palace.
Ted and I had walked the long corridor and as we passed the Prince Of Wales apartments that sit on the south east corner facing out to the Mall then occupied by the Duke and Duchess of York we pushed our way through two more huge double doors effectively turning right into another long corridor above the Ambassadors Entrance which faces Buckingham Gate, this is the corridor Michael Fagan entered the morning of his break-in. The time was just after 3am, I remember as I was late for my rest break at 3, as we pushed the second door open into the corridor I could see a ghostly figure of a man dressed in eastern style uniform with what looked like a large jewelled sabre on his belt translucent in the light standing in front of a door on my left side towards the end of the corridor. Ted spoke first, “do you see that?”. I shivered with fear and I could feel the hair stand on the back of my neck as I struggled to grasp just what I was seeing. “Yes I see it Ted, have you seen it before?” Ted said quietly “Yes, from time to time”. Regaining my composure I questioned what I was seeing, “is it a wind-up, a trick because I’m new, its a trick, where is the projector Ted?” Ted spoke quietly again, “it’s no trick, shine your flash lamp into it and you will see that it is not a reflection”. I shone my torch and so did Ted but the figure remained in clear sight. Ted spoke, “lets keep walking towards it and it will disappear”. We walked towards the ghost, because I have no doubt in my mind that that was what it was, as we passed by it disappeared, it was gone, there was no smoke, no ghostly mist, it just disappeared and was gone. Ted and I were quite shaken up and we went to the Police canteen for a coffee, Ted explained that many years earlier when he had first saw the apparition he made some enquiries with a Palace historian, he had discovered that although a bathroom suite now stood behind where the figure was standing that in the time of Queen Victoria this had been the location of a Guard Room for members of the Guard details travelling with guest dignitaries visiting the Court of Queen Victoria. Ted had only ever saw the ghostly figure when he patrolled alone, tonight was the first time that he had witnessed the figure with someone else present. We decided not to share our ghostly experience with the other Officers on duty that night, I was new and I didn’t want to be the butt of my colleagues jokes as they would surely laugh at our story, Policemen being Policemen. I returned to duty at 4am and took up a posting in the Garden in one of the Police Boxes, I kept the light on until the morning broke. Ted and I became firm friends and he often told me that he continued to see our ghostly friend many times after that night.
The sun had come up and the garden was very beautiful, I stepped out of my Police box to admire the surrounding lovingly tended Rose beds and manicured grass lawns with winding well cared for pathways leading off into the gardens beyond. My Police radio crackled alive and I heard a purple call-sign informing our control room that they were arriving shortly at North Centre Gate, that’s the gate that you will have seen uniformed police Officers of the RPD manning at the Constitution Hill end of the Palace forecourt. I walked to the Garden Gates that are the huge wooden gates situated in the colonnade arch just off to the right of the east wing that faces the Mall. In the gates is a small wicket pedestrian gate with a peep-hole wide-angled eye viewer. I watched as a Jaguar XJ6 Coupe came around the Queen Victoria Memorial and turned into the open North Centre Gates and towards the Garden Gates coming to a stop just outside on the red stones of the Buckingham Palace forecourt. The drivers door opened and out stepped a very tall slender and very beautiful woman who started to walk very purposely towards me, HRH Princess Diana’s bodyguard Police Inspector Ken Wharfe exited the passenger door and surveyed his surroundings. I opened the wicket gate as the Princess approached, I remembered from my training that Princess Diana did not expect or want the formalities of police officers saluting her. Princess Diana was in loose fitting white trousers and a tailored navy pinstripe jacket with a towel draped around her shoulders, she wore flat shoes. I stood to attention as she came through the gate and tipped my helmet as you would an Irish flat cap, something my father always did to those of a higher station in life when he met them. Diana smiled and greeted me with, “good morning officer”. I replied sheepishly, “good morning Mam” in my broad Northern Irish accent. The Princess stopped and turned towards me, “are your family safe there?” I replied “yes Mam, thank you”. Diana continued, “ It’s terrible what is happening there, but I so do love to visit”.
The brief encounter was over and Diana Princess of Wales the then future Queen of England entered the Queens door to swim in the Palace swimming pool. Abour thirty minutes later I let a smiling Princess Diana still drying her wet hair with her towel out through the small gate to her waiting car and watched I watched as her hair seemed to shimmer in the sun as she stepped in behind the steering wheel of the Jag, the car slowly eased its way across as the Palace forecourt and onto Constitution Hill. I remember her genuine concern for my family, her warmth, I could see it in her eyes. Even first thing in the morning she was a woman of natural beauty, a true Princess, she had a presence, a gift of empathy for others that few possess. The Princess came to swim most mornings in the Palace swimming pool, the rumour in the Household was that she brought her own towel because of Palace staff shananigans that had left no dry towels available for the morning swim of HRH Princess Diana. The morning visits stopped as relations with her in-laws deteriorated and it was widely believed that the Duke of Edinburgh put a stop to her use of the Palace swimming pool. Shortly after HRH started to use the Harbour Club at Chelsea Harbour which resulted in several photographic expose of HRH in the media against her wishes.
In time I would see HRH Princess Diana and her young boys at their home Kensington Palace, work at Windsor Castle and Balmoral Castle in close proximity to the HM the Queen and go to work at St James Palace as one of HM The Queen Mother’s Policemen protecting Clarence House.
Old London Now 