What the Queen Mum's Butler Taught Me about Good Manners
And why etiquette has nothing to do with knowing which fork to use
This morning my newsfeed served up a story about Elisabeth Hasselbeck’s near disaster at a state dinner hosted by President George W. Bush in honor of Queen Elizabeth II.
Nervous, she noticed a small bowl of water beside her plate and took a sip.
Jeb Bush leaned over and murmured, “You might not want to drink that. That’s for your hands.”
She’d been drinking from the finger bowl.
If you’ve ever been in a formal setting and wondered which fork to use—or worried you might embarrass yourself—you can probably sympathize.
Moments like that remind me what good manners are really about. As Jonathan Swift said, the goal of good manners is to make others feel at ease. AI sums it up this way: “Good manners are less about rigid etiquette and more about mindful awareness of the feelings of others.”
In other words, good manners are compassion in action.
I learned that lesson thanks to the late Queen Mum’s butler.
David and I were invited to dinner at the Mayfair home of a well-off American who had married a Brit. The other guests included the mother of a British TV star.
Naturally, I was excited. New situations are a writer’s goldmine.
I was also confident my manners would pass muster. My mother, a Southern belle, was a stickler for etiquette. Casual dinners didn’t exist in our house. We were expected to use our utensils properly, ask to be passed food, and request to be excused when we finished. She even showed us how to set a formal table, explaining that you work from the outside in as each course arrives.
But that evening, I ignored everything I’d been taught.
The salad course arrived, and the fork on the far left looked far too puny for the greens on my plate. I bypassed it and picked up the next fork in line.
Hovering nearby was a butler. We’d been told beforehand that he worked for Her Majesty the Queen Mum and moonlighted for extra money. (The Queen Mum, from what I gathered, was famously lavish in her lifestyle but not especially generous in paying staff.)
I had never eaten a meal attended by a butler before. In many ways he functioned like a quietly attentive waiter, staying in the background while directing the servers and making sure we wanted for nothing.
Except… I suddenly wanted for a fork.
The main course arrived.
Everyone around me picked up their utensils.
I felt a flash of panic.
I was one fork short.
Then I heard a soft voice at my shoulder.
“Excuse me, Miss.”
Without drawing the slightest attention, he slid the proper fork beside my plate. No fuss. No embarrassment. No one at the table noticed anything at all.
No one knew but me—and my new best friend in a butler’s jacket—that I’d made a mistake.
That moment drove home what good manners really mean.
Good manners aren’t about knowing which fork to use.
They’re about protecting someone else from embarrassment.
The butler could easily have left me there, flapping in the breeze.
Instead, he quietly came to my rescue.
I think we could all use a little more of that these days. When the world feels chaotic, a small gesture of kindness can stand out in the best possible way.
Have you ever been rescued from a social mistake like that? Or helped someone else out of one? Please share with us!
Speaking of kind gestures…
Tonight at 7 p.m. ET, we’ll celebrate Mystery Mondays at Joanna’s Readers.
My guest will be Chrissy Chicory of the Velvet Teacup Society. (Don’t you love that name?) It’s basically a pajama party for adults, and you’ll hear all about it this evening.
Come join us, won’t you?
Buy me a Cuppa?
And speaking of teacups, you’re always welcome to buy me a cup of coffee. I just ordered a new bag of Dunkin’s Caramel Me Crazy and nearly fainted at the price. Apparently inflation has reached caffeine.
And that’s bad news because I’m in the home stretch of writing Purple, Blame, Game! It’s available for pre-order here: Purple, Blame, Game.
Sad but true, caffeine keeps my fingers flying across the keyboard. I love it when you buy me a cup! You can do that here: https://ko-fi.com/jcslan
In the meantime, if you ever find yourself staring at a mysterious bowl of water beside your plate…
pause before taking a sip.
Love, Joanna
I love that! It makes me think of Arthur Treacher as a butler in very old Shirley Temple movies. He would have done that.