| William Tallon | |
|---|---|
| Born | 12 November 1935 Coventry, England, UK |
| Died | 23 November 2007 (aged 72) England |
| Title | Steward and Page of the Backstairs |
William John Stephenson Tallon, RVM (12 November 1935 – 23 November 2007) was a steward and extrovert member of the Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother's staff at Clarence House.
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Tallon was born in Coventry where he also went to school. He became interested in the Royal Family, and began collecting newspaper articles in a scrapbook.
Tallon's first job in the Royal Household was as a junior assistant, at Easter Court at Windsor. This was in 1951 when he was aged 15. He had been writing letters asking for work with the Household for the previous five years.
He was later employed at Buckingham Palace. He was set to join Queen Elizabeth II on her Commonwealth tour in 1953-1954 but was kept back and did National Service with the RAF. Subsequently, he then asked the Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother if he could work at Clarence House. She agreed, and he remained with her until her death in 2002. He became Steward and Page of the Backstairs, the page closest to the Queen Mother. He was given the nickname Backstairs Billy.
After the death in 2000 of his partner, Reg Wilcock,[1] the House Deputy Steward and the Queen Mother's Page of the Presence, in 2000, Tallon reportedly suffered from depression when the Queen Mother turned to a younger team.
When the Queen Mother died in 2002 Tallon was moved out from his Lodge house at Clarence House and he settled in a ground-floor flat with a garden in Kennington.
Channel 4 released a TV documentary Backstairs Billy: The Queen Mum's Butler in 2009.
He was one of the few holders of the Royal Victorian Medal in Gold, being the highest award in the lowest grade of the Royal Victorian Order.[2]