Queen’s Car Breaks Down At Sandringham Church Service

The Queen was left apparently laughing earlier today when her 2002 state Bentley wouldn’t start as she was at the traditional Sunday church service near her current residence, Sandringham House.

Standing nearby, she was seen laughing and pointing as her chauffeur tried to coax the motor into action outside St Mary Magdalene church on the Norfolk estate.

The car’s V8 6.75 litre engine finally spluttered into life at the seventh attempt and the Queen, wearing a checked black and white coat with a white hat decorated with black bows, climbed in for the quarter-of-a-mile drive back to Sandringham House.

The Duke Of Edinburgh was not with her at the time as he prefers to walk to and from the traditional Church service.

A crowd that had turned out to see Her Majesty in attendance also witnessed the car incident, also treating it with the same level of humour as Her Majesty did.

A present from the Government for her Golden Jubilee in 2002, Her Majesty actually owns two state bentleys, identical, the second is for an occasion just like this, though it was not needed nor to hand today.

Both the cars were converted to run on bio-fuel in 2009, Its maximum speed is 130 mph (210 km/h) – though it wasn’t quite reaching those speeds today.

Bishop Cottrell said he was standing with the Queen waiting for the Bentley to pick her up.

He said: “He [the chauffeur] got into the car, put the key into the ignition and it made that kind of throaty rasping noise that cars make when they are not going to start.

“So he tried again and again it makes the noise… three or four times.

“At this point, really for a bit of fun, I just took a little step forward and made a blessing over the car, which got a laugh from the crowd.

“The chauffeur tried the key again and it started. So then there was a great round of applause.

“It is one of those nice little incidents,” he said. “We all saw the funny side of it.”