Today I am continuing our look at People With Very Unusual Jobs Indeed:
No 67: The Queen's Privy Counsellor

If there is one thing in life that Sir Arthur Windvane is rather cross about, it is that the word "councillor" and the word "counsellor" are pronounced the same.

"I am NOT, repeat NOT, a Queen's Privy Councillor," he says heavily. "There are masses of them and they don't seem to do anything much that you and I would recognise as important, but there is only one Queen's Privy Counsellor, and that is me. Or to be grammatically correct, that is I. I am it, anyway."

What Sir Arthur does, in brief, is to give the Queen counselling. Nowadays, when counselling is accepted, and you can hardly even get thrown off Big Brother without getting mandatory counselling, it can be admitted that the Queen (who has, when you come to think of it, been in a more stressful version of Big Brother all her life) has from time to time needed a bit of talking down or talking through.

"Not all the time of course," says Sir Arthur. "For months and months she might go without needing to cry on my shoulder, but then along comes something like the fire at Windsor, or the Jubilee, and we have to talk it through. My job is to help her get things in proportion."

But surely the Queen can never get things in proportion? Her whole life is disproportionate, is it not ? She is the richest woman in Britain. She has the most houses. She is titular boss of the country. She has her face on the stamps and coins. She has football clubs named after her ....

"Football clubs ?" says Sir Arthur. "Surely not !"

Well, Queen's Park Rangers, Queen of the South ...

"Oh, I'm with you," says Sir Arthur. "Yes, I get your point. Her life does seem disproportionate, if put like that. There aren't many women around who are guaranteed a crowd if they get in a coach. But in a funny sort of way, I have to give the Queen counselling if she shows any signs of hankering after a normal life. If I ever get the idea that she would rather be out in the crowd waving a flag, rather inside the coach waving back, then we have to sort it out."

Sir Arthur thinks that if the public ever knew of his existence and function, they might be worried, so his post is never referred to openly. Analogous to those public servants who are called things like Black Rod, he is sometimes informally known as Pink Ribbon, but he sees himself in a much longer tradition than you might expect.

"All monarchs have had people they could talk things through with. Not necessarily in an official function. In medieval times they had jesters, and favourites, and confidants, and even Queen Victoria had John Brown, which showed a lot of sense on her part. George V, as far as I can make out, had nobody he could unburden himself to except the Master of the King's Stamp Collection. Which is better than nothing, but you can only unwind so far with perforation and watermarks... No wonder George V was a bit of a monster."

And what sort of things does he say to the Queen ?

"Obviously I can't be specific, but in a funny sort of way I have to encourage any signs of 'folie de grandeur', or delusions of grandeur. In her case, they are not delusions, of course. They really are signs of grandeur. She really IS monarch of all she surveys. It's when she starts getting delusions of unimportance, signs of 'folie de petitesse', if you like, that we have to start to worry. So if I sense that she is starting to question her whole mode of life, and wondering why one woman in the country goes around chauffeur-driven while everyone else waves and bows and scrapes, I have to step in sharpish. Look at Tony Blair ! I say. Does he doubt his own importance ? Does he question his own status ? Learn from him !"

Did he ever point to Margaret Thatcher as a role model ?

Sir Arthur smiles a private smile. "Perhaps I can answer that question indirectly by saying that when her statue was decapitated the other day, the Queen was amused at the news. 'There was always something oddly monarchical about her', she said. 'Let us hope it does not give her a Charles I complex'."

Coming soon in our Unusual Jobs series: The Man Who Raises Funds For "The Enemies of Salisbury Cathedral".

16th July 2002