DAILY EXPRESS exclusive pictures of Miss Phoebe Triggs and Mr Robert Dewar Thomson

ROYAL KITCHEN MAID WITH £150 IN DAMAGES GOES BACK TO WORK

By LINDON LAING WINDSOR, Thursday.

PHOEBE TRIGGS, royal kitchen maid, daughter of a Palace policeman and a Palace chambermaid, told of romance below stairs at Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, and Windsor when she sued her former sweetheart, her second cousin, for breach of promise in London Sheriff's Court today.
Later, with £150 damages in her handbag, she toiled alone up the hill to the castle, said a weak "Good evening" to the policeman on the staff door, and went through the dark corridors to the kitchens to change into white overalls and help to prepare dinner. She looks after the sweet dishes. Love letters which had come to her with the mail for monarchs were read in court. Miss Triggs is 27 years old, tall and dark, good-humoured, pleasant-faced.
Her home is in Pimlico, but for 11 years she has served in the royal kitchens and to Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, and Windsor. Robert Dewar Thomson, travelling engineer for a Scottish firm, came to woo her, she told the court today
"SWEETHEART OF MY DREAMS"

Thomson did not apppear. "Sweetheart of all my dreams" and "My darling wife-to-be " were phrases he had used in writing to her. "Your happiness means everything to me. My precious darling, I just long to hold you close, my sweetheart, for I cannot do without you," ran one letter. "I will never go astray if you say a prayer for me and I will say a little prayer for you," ran another. Miss Triggs - she has brown eyes that today seemed sad - said Thomson suggested marriage in 1933. But later he wrote: "I am sorry I have not been true to you and I have been out with other girls." This afternoon at Windsor Castle I went through the long, dark corridors with their big stone flags down to the kitchens where Miss

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ROYAL MAID SAYS ROMANCE IS “FINISHED”
(CONTINUED)

Triggs works when the King and Queen are in residence here. A scarlet-coated footman led the way as he had led the way for Robert Thomson, when he called.
On the stoves royal dinners were  simmering. There were huge basins of fresh fruit, salads and cream, piles of scallop shells, rows of tender young chickens. White-hatted chefs and scurrying assistants were hard at it.
And, while in a bus, Miss Triggs was hurrying back to help them, the King and Queen were driving home from Ascot. Crowds around the battlements were waiting to cheer them.
One of the kitchenmaid's friends said to me: " It was about three years ago that Thomson used to come and see her. She was very fond of him, very much in love. "She was a happy girl then, but she seemed to turn sad when it ended, and Thomson didn't come any more. She lost two stone through worrying, they say."
Others of her friends said Phoebe had gone to London "on business,” but had promised to try to come back in time for duty. They hurried away when an official said “Look at that pan boiling over!”
Miss Triggs came just in time to take her place in the kitchen. She said: "It's all finished now. I have not seen him for a long time. I do not even know where he is. "I want to forget it all. I want to get on with my work."