ADVICE Butler really did it and now tells how

Arthur Inch claims that Winston Churchill was 'a right handful".
WASHINGTON POST
Arthur Inch, a butler by profession, once clocked 18 miles on his daily rounds at the Marquess of Londonderry's palatial London town house. Later, in other stately English homes, he did what butlers do best: overseeing the setting of tables with more pieces of flatware than most of us have a clue how to use; folding heavily starched napkins into myriad shapes including bishops' mitres, roses and "pigs' faces"; and perfuming rooms with a heated ladle filled with scent.
Now, like almost every other British servant, he has written a book. But this is no kiss-and-tell about the hapless royal family. Instead "Dinner Is Served: An English Butler's Guide to the Art of the Table" with Arlene Hirst (Running Press, 160 pp., $16.95) is a primer on how to entertain properly and behave in polite company.
Why, we wondered, this book, at this time? We eat on the run, not often at banquet tables, and when we entertain, casual is the rule.
"The reality may be nuking your food and eating in front of the TV, but 'Dinner is Served' is useful precisely because we have become a fast-food nation," says Hirst. "Besides, there comes a time in everybody's life when you're faced with a fancy party or a wedding. It's comforting to know that there are rules for how to behave. They're there to keep you from making mistakes."
Hirst, senior design and news editor at Metropolitan Home and a former china buyer for Bloomingdale's and author of "Every Woman's Guide to China, Glass and Silver," says she is often confronted with attending elaborate luncheons fraught with the potential for unforgettable faux pas, held at such formidable settings as Tiffany's in New York.
"I can't tell you what a relief it was to learn that it's perfectly okay to pick up and eat asparagus with your fingers," she says, "or to sop up gravy with a little piece of bread."
In his book, Inch has recorded his memories of more than 50 years of service in some of the great houses of England, plus a wealth of insider tips for the right way to polish silver, wash fine crystal goblets, navigate the differences between bouillon, chocolate and citrus spoons, and politely dispose of the remains of hors d'ouvres including shrimp tails and olive pits. (Put them -- but do not spit them -- into a cocktail napkin.) Although Inch prefers a formal table, as it turns out he is fine with casseroles and buffets. "For formal meals, however," he writes, "paper napkins are never used."
In the beginning
Now 87, Inch, whose service included a stint at Blenheim Palace, worked his way up through the ranks, beginning at 15 as hall boy at Aldborough Hall in Yorkshire. He was raised at nearby Nidd Hall, a 109-room mansion on 4,000 acres where his father was a butler and his mother a housemaid.
"He wanted to do the book because he's the last of a breed and wanted to pass on the information," says Hirst. Though he officially retired in 1980, he is still in demand and still butles from time to time. Recently he worked as the technical consultant on manners, bygone rituals and proper dress for servants for Robert Altman's film "Gosford Park," and for the British television series "The Edwardian Country House."
Some advice seems to come from that long-gone world. "Spreading clouds of scented air" through public rooms, Inch writes, was simply "adding another touch of gracious living." And while setting a table for 30 (with a perfect crease running down the center of the mile-long cloth), ironing the daily newspaper for the lord and master, and decanting ports, clarets and burgundies in the wine cellar holding a candle to the bottle so the sediment could be seen might seem a tad over the top, Inch includes plenty of suggestions for updating tradition.
Still correct
"Nowadays," he says, "it has to be much simpler, especially if you are doing it yourself, though the basic rules of setting the table are still the same." Food should be served from the left and beverages from the right. Wine, water and champagne glasses are always filled without lifting the glass from the table.
In his way, Inch tries to keep things easy. "Use the way you live as a guide," he advises in the book, reassuringly. "If you hate the idea of washing things by hand, then buy things labeled dishwasher safe."
"Winston Churchill was a nightmare to work for," he recalls in the book. At Blenheim, "he would stay in bed until midday, constantly ringing his wretched bell. And for such trivial things," such as picking "up a paper that had fallen off his bed! He was a right handful!"