The real life Aladdin's cave in Manchester repairing the world's brass instruments

To step into McQueens, the specialist musical-instrument repair firm in Salford, Greater Manchester, is to enter a real-life Aladdin’s cave. Shiny brass bugles line the walls and fragments of trombone waiting to be polished hang from thin wires, looking for all the world as if they’ve been enchanted. Bulky tubas huddle beside work surfaces like businessmen on bar stools jostling for an after-work pint, which is highly relevant given that the McQueens building’s former use was as a public house and it still has a cosy, community feeling. You could definitely imagine the clientele of years past sinking a drink together among the brass instruments. There’s nothing remotely modern anywhere to be seen.

As well as being the UK’s largest brass-instrument-repair workshop, McQueens tends to labrosones from all over the world, with customers travelling from as far as New Zealand and Hong Kong. The company has made bugles for the Royal Marines and used to be the sole contractor to the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for the maintenance of all its regimental bands’ instruments. Only four craftsmen are responsible for all of this: Wayne McNamara, Adam White, Tim McQueeney and his father, Rick McQueeney, who founded McQueens in 1985.

Rick, who used to play the cornet, started working in the trade aged 16, after abandoning plans to become a policeman (oddly, he is the only one of his team who has ever played a musical instrument). He started working in 1973 at Barratts of Manchester in Denton, another instrument-repair workshop, then moved to Fred Rhodes & Son in nearby Stretford, becoming workshop manager in 1980. After eight years, he decided it was time to set up shop on his own and McQueens was born.

Conveniently for him, Barratts of Manchester was going into liquidation at about this time, so he purchased its machinery and took on three of the firm’s former employees. The year that really changed everything for McQueens was 1994. Before then, the MoD had imported its bugles from abroad. ‘I said to Buckingham Palace: “I don’t think this is right”,’ Rick recalls, never one to take no for an answer.

In a letter, he urged the late Queen to champion British manufacturers instead. The next thing he knew, the Palace had sent a memo to the MoD and McQueens was awarded the contract. ‘I was totally shocked,’ he admits. ‘ABC News in America even did something on it.’ The news spread worldwide and it boosted the bugle-manufacturing side of the business.

For more than 12 years, McQueens serviced and renovated each and every musical instrument within the British Armed Forces: the longest-ever repair contract supplied to an independent workshop. The Duke of Kent visited to unveil a commemorative plaque in 2006 and, in 2007, Rick was invited to the garden party at Buckingham Palace, which he attended with his eldest child, Hayley.

Meanwhile, Rick’s other child, Tim, had seen the success of the business and was eager to get involved. He had strict tutelage under his father’s beady eye and has now been working at McQueens for 18 years, the highlight of which has been restoring the FA Cup. Although Rick is now 69, he doesn’t plan on retiring any time soon. The company is busy and the team works hard to keep up with demand. ‘We could have a dozen instruments going through at one time,’ he observes, gesturing to a jumble of brass: some of the instruments are simply warped, others missing various pieces and a few bent entirely out of shape or squashed. It’s like a hospital ward, except the patients are trombones and saxophones — and there’s a guarantee that every patient will leave this place as good as new.

Most of the instruments that come to McQueens have been dropped or had things fall on them. Trumpets and cornets are the most common victims: ‘They’re the smallest ones and are probably used a lot more often. If you go out in the streets marching with one… especially over Christmas when it’s icy…’ Rick trails off.

At McQueens, ‘everything is done by hand,’ its founder proclaims. When the instruments arrive, they are first disassembled by his son, who gently taps out all of their dents with a variety of different tools. This could take half a day for a small instrument or up to four days for a larger one. He then reassembles the instruments and passes them to Adam, who smooths down their exteriors.

‘This is the mucky part, where all the important work is done,’ Rick explains, taking me into the polishing room where Adam works; it’s freezing cold and the walls are coated grey with debris from the two industrial sanding machines. Once Adam has finished with each piece, he passes them to Wayne, to be plated in silver or sprayed with lacquer before being polished until they shine.

‘They have to be immaculate,’ Tim states. ‘They can’t have a fingerprint or a speck of dust or a hair on them.’ It’s no surprise, with the expertise involved, that this is an expensive service. The recent increase in the price of silver has been an issue, too, as Rick explains: ‘About six years ago, when I was buying a silver anode [used in plating], I could get about five of them for £1,500. Now we’re getting one for almost £2,000.’ At McQueens, a cornet costs about £650 to restore. A double french horn costs £2,250.

Getting into the industry now is ‘very, very difficult,’ notes Tim. ‘Colleges do a 12- month repair course on brass and woodwind, which are completely different trades. It’s just soldering the odd joint, but not to this extent…’ He indicates the workshop. ‘Training to do this requires a four-year apprenticeship, I think.’ The team at McQueens doesn’t know how the next generation will pick up the craft. ‘Perhaps my little lad, if he wants to do it,’ Tim, heir to the business, suggests hopefully. ‘But young kids these days don’t want to do it, they want to be on a computer or something, don’t they?’

Fortunately, there are other bespoke instrument repairers around the country, for those looking to get a job in such a field. In London, Portobello Music repairs electric and acoustic guitars, as well as string-family instruments, amplifiers and keyboards. JAS Musicals, also in the capital, specialises in repairing musical instruments of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, as, further afield in Scotland, David Murray Flute Repairs focuses on flutes and piccolos. For Tim, however, it will always be brass. His love of his work shines through as he shows me instruments made by Sterling, Besson and Yamaha — describing Besson’s offerings lovingly as the ‘Rolls-Royce’ of the instrument world — and recalls customers’ delight when they’re reunited with their beloved instruments.

Only the other day, a man broke down in tears when the bass his parents had bought for him as a child was returned to him, fully restored. ‘Dad said, “if you can’t do something good, do something no one else does”,’ he tells me. At McQueens, they do both.

This article first appeared in the April 15 issue of Country Life. For more information on how to subscribe, click here.