Mechanics come to Queen's rescue during visit to region
It was warm summer’s morning, and the mechanics at a Rolls-Royce dealer in the West Midlands took a brief break to watch the Queen's cavalcade drive past.
“I hope that thing doesn’t break down,” muttered service manager Terry Stanley, as he eyed up the Her Majesty's gleaming glass-sided limousine.
A couple of hours later it did. And of course nobody believed it. But once it had been established that Her Majesty genuinely was stranded, mechanics Fred Budd, Chris Tate and Dean Guest came to the rescue.
The mishap happened during the Queen's visit to the West Midlands during the Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977.
The Queen had started her visit in Wolverhampton, and Fred and Chris had watched the cavalcade make its way past the P J Evans Rolls-Royce garage in Sedgley as it made its way to Dudley. But it was later in the day, during a visit to Walsall, that the Rolls-Royce Phantom Landaulette failed to proceed.
Fred, who was 26 at the time, recalls his boss interrupting his lunch break.
“I was sitting in the canteen eating my chips when the service manager came in and said ‘get your tools together Fred, the Queen’s car’s broken down’," he says.
“I panicked for a bit, then I thought it was a wind-up, and sat down again, I carried on eating my chips.
It seems even service manager Mr Stanley had his doubts about the call.
“Because he had said that, about the Queen’s car breaking down, he thought when he took the call it was a joke,” says Chris, who was 21 at the time.
Fred and Chris went out with Mr Stanley to examine the stricken motor, which had broken down close to Walsall Town Hall. Unfortunately the car required a new fuel pump which could only be obtained from the factory in Crewe, meaning that the Queen would be unable to finish her tour in the car.
“We did a roadside repair to get it back to the garage, but it would have been no good letting her have it back as it would have gone again,” recalls Chris.
"We were taken back to the garage under police escort with blue lights, and we let her have a brand new Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow to finish her engagements for the day.”
Chris, now 66, remembers being subjected to intense security checks before he was allowed to work on the royal vehicle.
“Terry, the service manager, lived in Cheshire, only 10 minutes away from Crewe. So he was able to pick the new fuel pump up on his way home, so we were able to let her have the car back the following day.”
A short while later, service manager Mr Stanley received a letter from the Queen’s equerry thanking him, Chris and Fred for their work on that eventful day.
Chris says he was not especially nervous about working on the Queen’s car, although he says it could have been embarrassing had something gone amiss.
“We used to work on a lot of celebrities’ cars at Sedgley in those days, we did Slade’s Phantom, Jimmy Lea’s Silver Shadow, Pat Roach the wrestler had a Shadow, and Kendo Nagasaki had a Corniche. I suppose it was more exclusive working on the Queen’s, but we weren’t fazed by it.”
As of May this year, Fred, 71, owned the Castec Motor Services, a Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Mercedes-Benz garage in Great Brickiln Street, Wolverhampton. Chris, who had recently retired from running his own garage, now works for Fred on a part-time basis.
