A Barkway grandmother has criticised the RAC after she had to wait nine hours for assistance when her car broke down on the A505 near Royston.

Gwendoline Warr’s Volvo broke down outside Royston McDonald’s between 5.30pm and 5.45pm on Monday last week – she was on the roundabout and managed to coast round to the front of the fast food restaurant before the car came to a halt.

She told the Crow: “I am 66 and I am a female on my own and I think it’s absolutely disgusting that they took nine hours to get here. I also told them I was diabetic and I needed to eat and take my tablets, which were at home.

“We pay all this money and they don’t give you the service you pay for. I got the impression they had put me to one side because they thought I was being awkward.

“The car was in a dangerous position and my hazard lights went out after two-and-a-half hours.

“The police did manage to move the car to the car park. The officers were lovely, but I thought it was absolutely appalling from the RAC.

“It was terrible, if I had been insulin-dependent I would have had an hypoglycaemic attack – when I said I had diabetes they said I could call 999.

“Also my cats were at home starving hungry, because they get fed about 5.30pm.

“I called out the RAC before about 14 years ago, and they were brilliant then.

“My husband has been with them for years.

“He was away at the time and I just think it wasn’t good enough to take that long to get to a female in her senior years on her own.

“My phone wasn’t working so I went into McDonald’s and they were absolutely wonderful in there, they let me use the phone and I was told it would be a wait of four to five hours – not nine.”

Mrs Warr has lived in the area for 23 years, and has two sons and six grandchildren. She eventually got home at about 3am.

An RAC spokesman said: “We’re very sorry Mrs Warr experienced such a long wait.

“We rescue thousands of drivers every day and pride ourselves on our roadside service. Unfortunately, there was an unusually high number of breakdowns in the area that day which led to the wait.

“Mrs Warr is a valued member of the RAC – we don’t want to lose her and are in touch to agree a suitable gesture of goodwill.”