Local history: Queen gave royal welcome to Hudson couple

A Hudson couple will never forget the graciousness of Queen Elizabeth II.

Ned and Lynn Kendall met the monarch in the 1970s while living in Belfast in Northern Ireland, a part of the United Kingdom. They attended public appearances by the queen and also recall being her invited guests at several functions.

Kendall, 85, said the royal receptions occurred when he was a vice president with Akron-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., directing the engineered products division in Europe and overseeing a factory outside Belfast. The plant, which employed 2,000, was the largest factory in the country, he said.

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Its biggest product was conveyor belts for the mining industry, but it also manufactured hoses, automotive products, truck parts, automotive components, ship fenders and other items.

“Anything that had rubber in it that wasn’t a tire, we made,” Kendall said.

That was the era of “The Troubles,” the Northern Ireland conflict between unionists who wanted to remain with the United Kingdom and nationalists who wanted to reunite with Ireland. Sectarian violence killed more than 3,500 people over a 30-year span.

“At the time, that was right at the peak of the war,” Kendall said. “It was all around us at that point. … We had bulletproof glass on our house. I was driving an armored car. We witnessed a lot of explosions and things.”

Despite the civil unrest, Goodyear’s new factory was welcome news in Belfast, Kendall said.

Kendall was born in Minneapolis, grew up in Des Moines, Iowa, and joined Goodyear in Akron in 1960, beginning as a sales trainee in industrial products. He and Lynn, a Cleveland native, married in 1961 at First Congregational Church of Hudson.

The couple moved to Belfast in 1975. They received invitations to state functions because Goodyear was the largest employer in Northern Ireland. At such events in the United Kingdom, the queen usually wanted representatives from Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to be in attendance, he explained.

One such occasion was a garden party at Buckingham Palace in London. The couple received an engraved invitation from Charles Maclean, who as Lord Chamberlain was the most senior officer of the royal household.

“The Lord Chamberlain is commanded by Her Majesty to invite Mr. and Mrs. N.G. Kendall to a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace on Thursday, 12th July, 1979 from 4 to 6 p.m.,” the invitation read.

Great efforts were taken in the planning and security for visits, Kendall noted. The invitation even included instructions on what to wear: morning dress, uniform or lounge suit.

The queen traditionally held three garden parties each summer at the palace. About 10,000 guests were invited per event in the 39-acre garden, so there wasn’t much opportunity to chat with royalty as Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, had tea and mingled with the crowd.

A much more intimate gathering was the time the Kendalls were invited on an evening cruise with the queen Aug. 11, 1977, aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia.

For security reasons, they took a tender boat out of Belfast Harbor and boarded the Britannia offshore in the Irish Sea. The event called for service dress or lounge suit.

Lynn was instructed to wear white gloves and a hat, and to curtsy when first meeting the queen. Ned was simply told not to try to shake hands with the monarch unless she extended her hand.

Upon boarding, the Ohio couple were escorted to a small room. Someone announced the guests’ names and the door opened.

There stood Elizabeth and Philip.

“The conversation was very formal and brief,” Kendall noted. “We were then ushered into a lounge area where the other guests who had preceded us were waiting.”

Only 10 couples had been invited. The room was decorated in gray with crystal, brass, silver and gold, he said. Waiters came around with hors d’oeuvres, taking drink orders.

“Then the queen arrived, and we all raised our glasses and said in unison: “Long live the queen.”

At that point, the gathering became informal.

“I remember Prince Philip strolling over to me with one hand in his pocket and the other holding his drink and saying ‘An American, right?’ ” Kendall recalled. “I said ‘How did you know?’ He said ‘The stripes on your tie come up to the right whereas ours come up to the heart or the left.’ ”

Around that time, Elizabeth walked up with a drink in hand and casually asked Lynn how she liked living in Belfast.

“I’m sure my wife said, ‘Lovely,’ ” Kendall said.

That was a polite way to refer to a conflict-torn city.

“It wasn’t ‘lovely,’ but we were there creating 2,000 jobs, which was very welcome to Belfast and that part of Northern Ireland,” he said.

Other members of the extended royal family were aboard the 412-foot yacht. Kendall recalls seeing young boys in kilts running around and playing tag. It was a casual atmosphere and the queen “acted like she was just one of us,” he said.

“Once the pomp and ceremony was over with and you were just in a small group in a relaxed atmosphere, she was just very down to earth,” he said. “She kind of reminded me of a typical American housewife. She was very gracious. Just a likable, normal person. Very warm personality.”

Philip was a little more reserved and less talkative, but the prince had a wry wit that bubbled to the surface during conversations with guests.

“He had a good sense of humor,” Kendall said. “He would throw in a joke here or there.”

When Buckingham Palace learned that Kendall would be moving home to Ohio in 1979, the queen appointed him an honorary officer of the Order of the British Empire.

The award was presented in the field of industry. Kendall was honored for expanding Goodyear’s employment and for assisting the Minister of Commerce in securing the DeLorean Motor Co. to build its car factory in Belfast. The only other non-British recipient that year was Australian Olivia Newton-John in the field of music.

Elizabeth signed the official proclamation, which lists her titles as “Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith and Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.”

“We do by these presents grant unto you the Dignity of an Honorary Officer of Our said Order and hereby authorise you to have hold and enjoy the said Dignity and Rank of an Honorary Officer of Our aforesaid Order together with all and singular the privileges thereunto belonging or appertaining,” the document notes.

Ned and Lynn came home to Ohio. While they lived in many cities, their children — Laura, Julie, Susan and Ned III — all returned to graduate from Hudson High School.

When Kendall retired from Goodyear in 1995 after 35 years, he was serving as vice president with worldwide responsibilities for the engineered products division, overseeing 24 factories around the globe.

A wall on the home of his Hudson home is decorated with framed invitations from the queen along with the medal from the Order of the British Empire.

Memories came flooding back Friday when Ned and Lynn learned about the death of Queen Elizabeth II at age 96, just a year after the death of Prince Philip at age 99.

The royals had been such gracious hosts to an Ohio couple in the 1970s.

Now their son will reign as King Charles III.

The queen is dead. Long live the king.

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com.

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Queen Elizabeth II was gracious hostess to Hudson couple