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Vincent’s fi rst enrolment of students, the majority of whom are Belgian, arrived in September to embark on their intensive four week course. T e majority of classes take place at Le Plaza Hotel in Brussels, which works in partnership with the school. T e course fee is a hefty €6,980 but, if successful, students can expect to earn up to £100,000 per annum in the most luxurious of settings. In places such as Dubai, where demand for the archetypal British butler is greatest, those earnings are tax free. Vincent said: “We operate three courses a year and restrict the number of students to 12 per course to ensure quality. We have a lot of role play exercises and it would take too much time if we had too many students. T e training is part theory, part practical. T is may involve anything from removing a drunken guest from a household to dressing a table in the correct way. We’ve also taken fi eld trips to settings such as three-star Michelin restaurants and private jets. T e students have been very impressed.” T ough clients, particularly those from emerging economies, are attracted by the prospect of hiring the embodiment of the traditional British butler famously characterised by P.G. Wodehouse’s ‘Jeeves’, the modern-day household professional is expected to manage their employer’s jet-set schedule, from Swiss chalets to luxury yachts. “T e butler in 2013 isn’t the stereotype of the profession we see in movies,” Vincent said. “T e modern butler has changed into a professional organizer, but one who still has knowledge of the old skills and especially the ‘language of service’, as we call it.”


Vincent added: “We teach our butlers to have an answer for every situation. It is a way of making guests and hosts feel at ease should any awkward situation arise. T e most important quality to us is personality and attitude. You have to be willing to be at the service of your principal. Butlering is a way of life. From time to time it is a hard job and you are on your feet for several hours a day. In return you work in the most amazing places in the world and have a very interesting career.” A fourth generation hospitality professional,


Vincent, as he puts it, was “literally born in the hospitality industry”. His parents ran a hotel and restaurant near the Belgian coast, which he went on to manage with his brother before pursuing his ambition of becoming a butler. He said: “I wanted to reach the highest level in service. T ere was only one place to go and that was butler school.” Vincent trained at the Guild of Professional English Butlers and worked as a butler in the Lanesborough Hotel in Knightsbridge. He then managed a luxury property in the French Alps for an English couple, the name of whom he can’t disclose. Vincent trains his students between 9am and 5pm and is also heavily involved in the recruitment process. Having spent eight years working as a senior executive for a number of multi-nationals in the hospitality industry, he believed the time was right to set up the school, an idea he says “had always been stuck in my mind”. “I enjoy the fact that butlers are people that deliver daily to the highest standards,” he said. “We do things diff erently. As director of the school, I can now enjoy teaching people this beautiful profession.”


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