Paul Burrell was eighteen when he joined the Royal Household, and he stayed for more than two decades. Born in June 1958, he began as a footman at Buckingham Palace, became personal attendant to the Queen, and later served as butler to the Prince and Princess of Wales, a post that placed him closer to Diana than almost anyone outside her own family.
After her death in 1997 he became a public figure in his own right, first as a witness to a period the country was still arguing about, then as an author. A Royal Duty, published in 2003, sold in enormous numbers on both sides of the Atlantic and effectively set the template for the modern insider memoir.
He remains a divisive presence, admired for his loyalty and criticised for speaking at all, and he has never pretended otherwise. What he offers is proximity: the small domestic detail, the overheard kindness, the ordinary weekday texture of a household most of us only ever see standing on a balcony.
11 hours and 10 minutes
