‘How did you get on with the Queen, Mr President, and what did you think of Windsor Palace?’ Lech Walesa thought for a moment and replied: ‘Windsor is very nice. But I’d move a few things round a bit if I lived there. The light was too far away from the bed and the bed was so big I could hardly find my wife in it.’

A few days before Walesa lost his wife in a Windsor bed, Neil Kinnock had Glenys to dine with the Queen, a meeting which prompted a much-quoted exchange between him and John Major across the Commons debating chamber. What actually goes on at Windsor Castle? The mix of guests is intriguing (the Kinnocks dined with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Home Secretary and Sir Paul and Lady Fox) and the etiquette virtually unknown outside the walls. Such little jaunts are known in The Household (when it comes to the Castle nearly every other word has a capital letter) as a ‘dine and sleep’. If this sounds like ‘wash and go’ or ‘bed and breakfast’, it is not intentional.

WC is the plum invite, the thing to go to. Obviously better than a lunch at Buckingham Palace, it is also rated by those who have been there much better than Balmoral which is a glorified camping holiday (hamburgers on spits and so on). But very few people are getting invited at the moment because of the rewiring at WC. Even One’s Family Christmas for 30 has had to decamp. It is, however, during April, Ascot in June or the Windsor Horse Show that invitations get extended. Gatherings at WC are the most formal and the Queen tends to be at her most relaxed during Ascot when she knows everyone who’s staying there.

Instructions on how to get to WC, what time to arrive and the code of dress are furnished. And a lady-in-waiting will answer questions about tips (yes, do) clothes (black tie; but ankle-grazing Scotch House rather than Thierry Mugler. HM is not a wild dresser) etc etc. What do I say to the Queen? is the one that can make the most hardened socialite go weak at the knees. Apparently anything goes-as long as it’s not in any way contentious or controversial. Something like ‘How are your horses?’ will usually do. The way to behave when receiving royal hospitality is subtle and arcane. Call her Mam (like ‘mum’) and curtsy or bow on first clapping eyes on Her. Thereafter the scraping and bowing ceremony is repeated only before going to bed and on first seeing the Royals in the morning.

One notable recalls how, years ago, Prime Minister Harold Wilson kept all the other guests up half the night drinking balloons of brandy. HM had retired to bed hours ago. The poor Canadian Ambassador was dead on his feet, but stayed up into the early hours. It wouldn’t, you see, have been etiquette to leave before the British Prime Minister. Generally, however, one doesn’t get drunk with the Queen.

Lady Longford remembers a friend having her plunge bra removed from her room at WC, rendering her earth-bound in her glamorous gown until she tore her other bra into a new model. The Countess says that sort of thing happens all the time in houses where there are servants. The brisk ladies of The Household are not famed for having their fingers on the pulse of fashion. They do understand, however, that during Ascot week, ladies wear a bowl of fruit and veg on their heads.

WC is just up the M4 and within spitting distance of Heathrow Airport, from whence the roar of over-flying jumbos can be heard every three minutes during the day. (After the nervous exhaustion of the shindig, a ghost is likely the only thing to awaken the overnight guest who will probably not notice any shift in the medieval foundations either.) A place of muscular towers and serried battlements, going through the gate to WC is a bit like entering an up-market housing estate-on which Liz, there since the age of 26, is the oldest resident. The place is full of tenants like military knights, the dean and cannon and lots of chaps in funny outfits. In addition, the shrubs tend to reveal assorted cranks, Fleet Street types-and former members of the Thames Valley police force keeping a close eye on the sleeping arrangements. The Queen has her own self-contained apartment where she can rustle up bacon and eggs or try on a tiara and sash with a tracksuit in peace.

There’s a swimming pool too. One of the guests found the Queen’s bikini top-yes, she wears one in private-and light-heartedly tried it on. A man, he was. HM caught him cavorting. She definitely saw the funny side of the proceedings. But the offending article was rapidly removed and replaced in the Royal Ladies Changing Room.

The main guest gets a suite in, say, The Lancaster Tower. WC notepaper-and loo paper-is provided, but there are no bath robes or giveaway shower caps. While Countess Spencer whacks stamps on the envelopes in her guest rooms, our dear Queen is known to make a little saving in this department. State rooms are hangar-sized and of concussing splendour-mostly the handiwork of George IV and his chappies-in various forms of neo-Gothic, souped-up and florid. And the Grand Reception Room is dazzling. George IV and the Duke of Wellington types glower from the walls, and the place is awash with Van Dycks, Canalettos, Stubbs’, Holbeins and old-master drawings.

Bedrooms are pretty standard decor-tapestries, glowing wood, richly wrought ceilings and suchlike. The Woman of the Bedchamber, it must be understood, is a lady-in-waiting. A quick peek round the door will reveal endless pages and footmen wandering around wearing livery. Like all old-fashioned bedrooms, bathrooms are rarely en suite and they skimp on the heating and have endless huge chests of drawers. Bedrooms also tend to be a good 15 minutes from where the food is served. And if one brings a nanny or lady’s maid (these days few do), she’ll be another 20-minute walk away. It’s well known that Princess Michael wasn’t impressed with the nursery arrangements for the dreadful Freddie. And the maids’ rooms are primitive and spartan.

Queen Victoria used to forbid people to smoke. One Archbishop of Canterbury was caught puffing up his chimney. Things these days are much more relaxed. There’s a story that the whole Royal Family drank from finger bowls on observing some African dignitary doing so. But this is probably not true. It is, however, all right to eat one’s salad with fingers, as Mrs Tebbit found.

You are led to dinner by HM, and the seating arrangement very properly goes boy-girl-boy-girl. All this takes place on a great long table in somewhere like the Waterloo Chamber which is not where the battle was fought, although it has a size that suggests it could have been.

The Queen and Prince Philip will often sit in the centre of the table, opposite one another. Forests of flowers preclude having to make eye contact or conversation with the person opposite. These marvellous huge bowls of flora have been home grown and arranged by people who have had to clamber onto the-at that stage felt-covered-tables to do so. This is not generally done during dinner.

Food tends towards the Dover sole and peas variety. Simple and good is the way it is described by those who have savoured it. Fruit and veg come from the Home Farm. The wines are all served by white-gloved men. Mam talks to the person on her left during one course and the person on her right during another. It is advisable to follow suit, otherwise you end up nattering to the Countess of Hoo Ha’s hairdo during the sorbet.

After dinner, the Queen does a guided tour around the State Apartments, ending up in the Royal Library. Like the head girl of a boarding school, she expects people to pay attention. And the Royal Library goes to a lot of trouble to find out what the guests are interested in.

Michael Foot, something of a bibliophile, was amazed to see The Household didn’t just read Dick Francis. And the Library doesn’t just keep books. They have all sorts of curiosities like Henry VIII’s cricket bat, the flying gloves that Prince Andrew used during the Falklands and the diary that Elizabeth kept of the Coronation. Depending on your interest, you’ll arrive in the Library and find a cricket bat or an illuminated manuscript in the display cabinet.

HM loves to hear jokes, (maybe something to do with being partly Scottish). ‘What do you get when Batman and Robin are run over? Answer: Flatman and Ribbon.’ That was the one that made Her Majesty roar with laughter.

She likes to provide some entertainment-and even during the house parties of Ascot week there will be some kind of drawing-room reading or string quartet on offer. The Queen also sometimes shows films. But probably not King Ralph.