Butlers are back and at your service

At the end of the Second World War, sweeping societal changes brought the butler and valet to the brink of extinction. But now a personal servant has become the must-have hotel accessory for super-rich celebrities, business moguls and eastern oligarchs.

It means a new generation of Jeeveses are shining shoes, decanting port and securing optimum wi-fi connections. Only this time rather than in family piles it is in luxury hotels.

Ritwik Deo is one of the new breed of gentlemen's gentlemen. The St Andrews University postgraduate, part of a six-strong team of butlers based at luxury Edinburgh townhouse The Howard, is in no doubt that specialist service is back in vogue.

He said: "Butlers were a dying breed and associated with all the feudal trappings of the Victorian and Georgian eras, but the profession has made a dramatic comeback.

"The nouveau riche and a demand for old-world service means that butlers are once more to be found warming teapots and scuffing shoes."

The servant at the five-star hotel, where the most expensive suite costs up to 475 a night, revealed his duties were not dissimilar to those carried out by his 20th-century predecessors.

He said: "Each butler is assigned a guest and expected to be assiduous in service.

"My job is to provide service clothed in a dapper exterior and an unashamedly cut-glass accent.

"A typical day might start off with serving a three-course breakfast to the guests in their bed, polishing their shoes, starching their collars and unpacking their bags.

"The day might end with discreetly coaching the guest on how best to light their cigar, loading their luggage onto the Royal Scotsman train and preparing for the next day's caddying at St Andrews."

Deo's duties also require him to deal with the most outlandish of requests while maintaining a stiff upper lip and without batting an eyelid.

He explained: "Whether it is a formidable guest that needs the corners of their suite lined with candles and photos of Elvis, or the gentleman that once desired a raw quail egg in his goblet of port at four o'clock in the morning; we comply."

However, he insists that there is nothing servile about providing service in modern egalitarian Scotland.

He said: "Too often a career in hospitality is seen with a jaundiced eye as unskilled or, at best, a temporary vocation.

"It couldn't be further from the truth. The butlers that I work with are seasoned to the point of perfection."

Don Matheson, the owner of the Boath House Hotel, a restored Georgian mansion near Nairn, believes that their butler service keeps customers coming back.

He said: "Everybody expects a warm welcome, a clean bed and a good dinner, but a butler provides those little extra things which can make a stay particularly memorable.

"They make sure the guests have what they want on arrival, show them how to make the best of the local area, bring drinks to their rooms and even ensure they have internet access.

"A good butler is a concierge, a front-of-house and a waiter all rolled into one.

"Instead of having the guest running around looking for a member of staff, the butler runs around looking after them."

The hotelier, who does not charge extra for providing butler service, said their staff were used to dealing with unusual inquiries.

He said: "Country house hotels are for romantic trysts, and if people request champagne, chocolates and roses we are only too happy to oblige.

"A lot of people come here to propose and, again, we are happy to help with reconnaissance in the gardens to help find the perfect spot to pop the question."

Around 5,000 butlers are believed to be currently working in the UK, but the British Butlers Guild believes the number is once again rising after years of decline.

A Guild spokesman said: "No self-respecting luxury five-star hotel can now hope to compete effectively in the international market without a butlers department.

"Modern hotel guests are looking not for good service but for great service, and are increasingly prepared to pay extra for butler service."

'Whatever our guests demand, we comply'

Ritwik Deo Butler at The Howard

THE pantry is where the day begins and ends. It is a warm place, forever warbling to the sounds of cutlery being polished, the coffee brewing or the milk frothing. It is the place we butlers like to call our very own.

The day starts early with the amassed butlers dining in staggered shifts, each savouring the same fare that is meant for the guests above. Shoes are scuffed and collars are starched.

I have a good look in the mirror and dart upstairs to check in a guest to their suite. It is a well orchestrated move - a tray of teas followed by a quick installation of luggage in the rooms, unpacking the bags and laying out the rose petals on the four-poster.

On this day I have been summoned to picnic duties in St Andrews. I am to caddy our trans-Atlantic guests at the Old Course and then to lay out a sumptuous picnic. A violinist has been borrowed from the Students' Union and does a good job of playing Vivaldi.

Each butler is assigned their guests and expected to be assiduous in their service. Butlers live a life of anticipation. Whether it is the formidable guest who needed all their furniture removed from their room or the gentleman who desired a raw quail egg in his goblet of port at 4am, we comply.

At the picnic, I await further instructions from my guests. I reach out to serve the scones when I hear the most satisfying words a butler can ever hope to hear: "We don't know what we would do without you."