Former royal aide left ‘unsurprised’ by King Charles’s Buckingham Palace decision

He told the People’s Channel: “It didn’t surprise me because for the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, Windsor Castle was home. Buckingham Palace was the office; the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh had an apartment in the far right-hand corner of the building, and that’s where Her Late Majesty’s private meeting room was, where the Prime Minister would come every week for a private audience and so on.

“That was the office, and then her home rooms were above the office, so to speak. Home was Windsor Castle, and Balmoral and Sandringham were her country cottages.

“That was what the Queen thought of Windsor Castle – as home.

“Therefore, it didn’t surprise me when the Prince of Wales became King, and now it’s being refurbished; he’s used St James’s Palace and Clarence House as his London bases, and Highgrove is his home.

“So it doesn’t surprise me that he didn’t need another place to live, if you like, when he’s already got very comfortable accommodation in St James’s Palace and Clarence House, which is 100 yards away, so it didn’t surprise me that that decision was made.”

During his employment, Mr Fox-Edwards organised large-scale events like royal weddings and state banquets, many of which occurred at Windsor Castle.

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The Squadron Leader told GB News that much of the current refurbishment work at Buckingham Palace drew inspiration from Windsor Castle.

He said: “When I was there, there was a huge amount of work being done for Windsor Castle after the 1992 fire, and much of what’s been done at Buckingham Palace now is as a result of what was learnt from Windsor Castle, because there was such a great fire risk.

“One of the things that people may not know is if you’ve got a very big stately home or very impressive building, they often have double floorboards, which primarily were so that when the servants are walking past, you don’t hear squeaking floorboards.

“But it does mean you’ve got two sets of floorboards, in case fire ever gets hold underneath. So some of the work they’ll be doing is just practical stuff, wiring and all that sort of thing, and making the place fireproof.

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“But the standard of workmanship that’s still available in the UK is extraordinary.

“At Windsor, when that was done, I remember seeing it at the first event that was held there after the fire. It just took my breath away, just how stunning the work was.

“The Queen certainly didn’t care for waste and was cautious in that regard. But everything was done to a really high standard, and that was what impressed me most at Windsor. Buckingham Palace is impressive because of the scale of what it is and what it represents.

“The room that I worked out of was modest. It was one of the state bedrooms that had been converted into an office for me.”

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Outlining his day-to-day role, Mr Fox-Edwards explained: “I was there for the thick part of a year. My case was all around preparation for events – logistics, the planning, choosing musicians, choosing the menus, liaising with the Queen personally as to how we wanted things to be.

“In my case, it was around organising guest lists, sending invitations, checking responses, finding out who should be on the guest lists because we had 2,000 people. That’s an awful lot of people to fill Westminster Abbey.

“A lot of it was liaising with other royal households, foreign diplomats, Number 10, and the police, so there was a lot of coordination involved, and that was what my job was – to coordinate.

“They all go smoothly on the day and look completely seamless, and run as a well-oiled machine. It’s around briefing all the Royal Family and all the attendees at the various events, so they knew exactly what was expected and where they had to be and what was expected of them.”

Buckingham Palace: A Year in the Life is airing on Saturdays at 9:15pm on Channel 5.