Queen ‘a natural’ at serving potatoes, says Tamworth’s Spudman

A jacket potato seller says Queen Camilla is a “natural” after she served alongside him at an event to celebrate Meals on Wheels Week.

Social media star Spudman, real name Ben Newman, from Tamworth, Staffordshire, was working with the Queen in a food truck, which he described as “the most surreal thing I’ve ever done”.

They were serving at a reception at Clarence House in London on Wednesday attended by representatives from the Royal Voluntary Service and National Association of Care Catering, who help cater for elderly and vulnerable people.

“She did really well; I was impressed. She’s a natural,” said Mr Newman. “Getting the butter on, serving the customers – brilliant. She did a good job.”

The Queen helped him load jacket potatoes with fillings before ordering a tuna mayonnaise-filled potato for herself.

“It was surreal – me and the Queen, in there, serving potatoes. What a whirlwind, honestly, amazing,” said Mr Newman, who has 4.2m followers on social media.

The Queen told him that her son, food writer Tom Parker Bowles, had “never forgotten” the jacket potato he served him when he visited his food truck in St Editha’s Square in Tamworth in 2024.

“I was really impressed she knew who I was,” he added.

He told the Queen about his dialysis treatment and how he has continued to run his business with the help of a portable dialysis machine.

He said one thing he enjoyed most about running his jacket potato food truck in Tamworth was talking to his customers.

Presenter Gaby Roslin, who was first to receive her loaded jacket potato from the Queen on Wednesday, said it was “possibly the strangest morning of my life”.

She added: “It’ll be one of those things that when I tell my daughters later, they’ll say, ‘What, sorry? The Queen served you a jacket potato?’

“And then we had a good giggle, and Tom Read Wilson and I sang Spudman’s theme tune with the Queen serving baked potatoes.

“If you say that in a sentence, it doesn’t seem real.”