Hotel Babylon?

Yesterday the Boy du Jour turned 28 (bless his cotton socks). We dined with his family in the East Croydon branch of Bella Italia and told tall tales over garlic bread and pizza.

At some point over the course of the meal the Boy's father revealed that in his younger days he had helped out as a part-time valet at a top London hotel, where his own dad had been head doorman for some years. "The pay was appalling," he told us, "but the tips were incredible - dad would come home with a 2 kilo jar of Beluga caviar and that would be all we had for dinner. One evening he couldn't even afford the bus fare home so had to walk from Piccadilly Circus to Putney carrying a brace of pheasants and two bottles of champagne under his arm."

We listened with eyes the size of saucers as he rolled out story after story. "The PR parties were the worst", he said. "They'd come in, drink themselves silly and then throw a strop when the hotel ran out of champagne. In the end, dad used to put cheap white wine through the Soda Stream and give them that instead. They never noticed."

And it wasn't just the plebs who were on the receiving end of the tricks of the trade. One of the worst kept secrets in London A-list circles was Princess Margaret's liking for a tipple or two. The rule in the hotels was simple: serve her an alcoholic drink, lose your job. But how to refuse royalty? Barmen across the capital put their heads together and came up with the answer: carefully pre-prepared martini glasses with rims rubbed in gin. The glass reeked of booze - and the drinker never knew that the actual content was tonic water and lime. "It's something they'll still do today if someone's had one too many," he told us.

Hammer Horror star Peter Cushing was another familiar face on the 5-star scene. "Dad always said he was the perfect gentleman," the Boy's father said. "He would never make extravagant demands or interrupt a conversation; he would always wait his turn, like he was just any man off the street."

He also had a particular quirk. "Mr Cushing would always put a white glove on his right hand to hold his cigarette . Since he was a chain smoker that meant the glove was on and off once every four minutes."

Last but not least was a story of his own. "One summer I was standing in for their usual valet for a bit of extra cash. Liz Taylor was in the hotel and had sent a dress out to be dry cleaned. It was covered in sequins from top to toe - but when I went to pick it up every single sequin had melted off. All that was left was a few smudges and a lot of twists of thread that had held the sequins in place. I was horrified and so was the hotel manager. Eventually, they sent me, the temp, up to the penthouse to hand the dress back - because I was easy to sack if she threw a fit."

Eventually he made his way through the maids and security staff and found himself in the presence of Miss Taylor herself. "I handed her the dress and for a moment she was completely silent - before laying into the designer and telling me exactly what she thought of the quality of Parisian dressmaking. I walked out of the room with my job intact and a tip to boot. The hotel manager couldn't believe it."

At this point I asked if she had been as beautiful as they say, and had I not been looking out for it I would never have noticed the tiny glance he shot his wife before he replied. "You know, I didn't really notice."

So that's where the Boy gets his tact from.