How Buckingham Palace is the royal home that never sleeps: The milkman arrives at 3am, a special Royal Mail van brings 5,000 pieces of post and chefs cook 600 meals a day, writes BRIAN HOEY - as officials advertise job vacancies

Buckingham Palace never sleeps. It is open for business 24/7 and the side door, where all the staff enter and leave, never closes.

It is through that door that a milk float arrives at 3 o'clock in the morning, direct from the Royal Dairy at Windsor, where the cyphers on the bottles were changed to K111R from the moment Queen Elizabeth II died.

Following the milkman comes a parade of tradesmen with fruit, vegetables, meat and a variety of other requirements for both the Royal and Household tables.

A special Royal Mail van arrives with the daily post – up to 5,000 items each time – so the Private Secretaries, who normally get in before 7am, can go through every letter and choose which ones to place before His Majesty when he sits at his desk at 9.30.

Six hundred meals are cooked every day and the royal chef Mark Flanagan and his staff are on duty very early. 

And Britons who want to be a part of feeding the Royal Family should get their CVs in order. Three chef positions are among 10 Palace vacancies currently open for applications. 

Buckingham Palace never sleeps. It is open for business 24/7 and the side door, where all the staff enter and leave, never closes, writes BRIAN HOEY

A special Royal Mail van arrives with the daily post – up to 5,000 items each time – so the Private Secretaries, who normally get in before 7am, can go through every letter and choose which ones to place before His Majesty when he sits at his desk at 9.30

The King offers excellent facilities to his staff, but what he doesn't offer is a lot of money. 

Working for the Royal Family means one can easily get a better paid job outside, as one former footman discovered when he was persuaded to accept a job in the United States paying $75,000 a year, plus a free car for himself - and his wife. 

Junior Palace staff start on around £10 an hour. But they do get accommodation inside the Palace and their meals for free. 

Everyone who works at the Palace is entitled to a (full English) breakfast, luncheon (never just lunch) and dinner and nobody is charged for a glass or two (or three) of wine. 

The staff dining room is located on the first floor and they all eat together, much to the dismay of certain members of the 'old guard' who cherished their separate, highly privileged dining rooms where liveried footmen waited on their more senior colleagues.

But the days of senior staff being waited on by servants have long disappeared. It's self-service for everyone, even the Lord Chamberlain, the man right at the top. 

But a certain amount of discrimination remains as it depends on your status where you sit and with whom. A Page of the Chambers would never dream of sharing a table with a newly arrived footman. But they might find themselves next to each other holding trays in the lineup for food. 

However, there is still a Household breakfast room where members can entertain outside guests once a month. This delightful room is on the ground floor overlooking the garden.

Although there used to be two kitchens - with one reserved for the royals and the other for staff - today there is just one. 

That change is down to the late Prince Philip, who found out about there being separate kitchens and thought it was all nonsense.  He ordered them to be amalgamated together into a single operation. 

Buckingham Palace head chef Mark Flanagan (left) is seen with other kitchen staff, as they prepare for a reception to mark the launch of the UK-India Year of Culture, 2017

Charles III at Buckingham Palace reading cards and messages sent by wellwishers following his cancer diagnosis

An Argos delivery van outside Buckingham Palace, December 2004 

Kitchen staff at Buckingham Palace are seen busy at work preparing food, 2000

Buckingham Palace head chef Mark Flanagan shows off his array of copper pans in the kitchen

The men who guard the front gates at the Palace are officers from 'A' Division of the Metropolitan Police. 

Technically they are not members of the Royal Household, even though some spend most of their careers at the Palace. 

They have their own separate dining room in a compound within the Palace grounds. 

All unmarried footmen and housemaids are required to live in. Their accommodation is on the top floor, with the females in one corner and the men as far away as possible. 

Newcomers get rooms at the rear and move to the front as they progress up the career ladder. 

None of the staff rooms is en-suite, so there is usually a rush for bathrooms early in the mornings.

One favourite practical joke is to persuade newcomers that if they want to be accepted into the Household, they must run naked along the corridors and through the female quarters. 

King Charles III, accompanied by the Princess Royal, presents the new Sovereign's Standard to The Blues and Royals during a ceremony at Buckingham Palace, June 2023

Staff sort through letters sent to Queen Elizabeth II after her Diamond Jubilee in 2012

Palace staff carrying table cloths out to the royal tea tent in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, 2001

A photo from the year 2000 showing a staff member sorting through letters in the post room 

Buckingham Palace is the most famous royal residence in the world

A cleaner hard at work, before staff arrive at one of the many desks in an office at Buckingham Palace, 2000

Edward Griffiths, then Deputy Master of the Household, walks through the picture gallery at Buckingham Palace, 2011

Most first-timers fall for this one, only to discover that when they return to their own room, the door has been locked. 

Some of the women are in on the joke and they take photographs which are then circulated. 

When Prince Andrew was young, he allegedly enjoyed showing some of the pictures to his friends.

So, bar the cruel initiation, there is plenty to enjoy in working at Buckingham Palace (or Windsor Castle).