Foreword

I first encountered Crale as a boy of nine, during the long summers my family spent at Hartenden. He was my grandfather's butler, though the title sits on him as inadequately as stream would sit on the Thames. Crale governed the household with a quiet and absolute authority that I have since encountered nowhere else, neither in the Service, nor in the regiment, nor in Parliament.

My grandfather, a difficult man to impress, once remarked that Crale was the only person in the house who never required instruction and never offered an opinion unless it was correct. Time revealed a flaw in the judgement, for Crale held opinions upon a surprising range of subjects; he delivered them with such economy that one mistook them for settled facts.

I recall an afternoon, when I must have been ten or eleven, upon which I appeared at table with my collar askew and my hands in a state that Crale later described, with characteristic restraint, as 'agricultural.' He said nothing during the meal, but intercepted me afterwards in the corridor and, in approximately forty-five seconds, explained the purpose of soap, the function of a collar stud, and the impression created by a young gentleman who presented himself as though recently exhumed. I have never forgotten the correction, although on occasion I have wished that I could.

When Crale informed me that he intended to set down the standards which he has spent a lifetime upholding, I confess that I felt something close to relief. My own education was delivered in person and the bruises to my dignity have long since healed. The world changes quickly; much that was once learned by instruction, habit, and correction has slipped from common use, leaving perfectly capable young men who have simply never been taken aside in a corridor and set right.

This guide will do what Crale has always done: tell you plainly what you ought to know, free of flattery, apology or any particular interest in whether you find the experience agreeable. You will be better for having read it, though I would never expect him to say so.

Encouragement was never much in his line, chiefly because he assumed that a person properly instructed would have no further need of it; this assumption was, in Crale's private reckoning, a form of compliment.

Sir Edward Astley-Pemberton, Bt., KCVO

Hartenden, Wiltshire, 1908