Robert Bowles

I am sure it is being removed. Those 32ft sections would have to be soldered together before being incorporated into the façade, and nobody in their right mind would have decorated the sections before doing the soldering.... So they must have been on their way out.

No need to apologise, Rowland. I wasn't trying to trip you up by listing people you hadn't mentioned! You will have seen me there!! I just wanted to point out how modest Harry (and his contemporaries) were about such things. Harry got an LVO when he eventually retired from the Chapel Royal some years later. The 6.30pm (second) Evensong at St Paul's was an "interesting event". It was sung by 20 (out of 30) Cathedral Choristers, supported by volunteer altos, tenors and basses of the "Special Service Choir". There was a rota, and we had two weeks "ON" and one week "OFF". Probationers were rostered to sing with the choristers. Being "on" was a bit of a pain because it precluded us going out with our parents for tea after the first evensong, and only those who were "Off" were allowed to change out of their Eton Suits after the first evensong. As we had already sung three services, we were allowed to leave before the sermon, but we still missed part of the time allocated for watching television!! At about the time you are talking about, Harry handed over the special service choir to Richard, who was the no 3 organist. He had a windmill styles of conducting, but was extremely vulnerable to catching the striplight on the conductor's music stand with his surplice (no slits in the sleeves in those days), whereupon the light would rotate and light up his feet. No giggling was allowed! Richard succeeded Harry at the Chapel Royal, and got his LVO when he retired from that post. Richard passed the Special Service Choir baton on to Minor Canon Cecil Cochrane, BMus(Cantab) who was a talented former Director of Music at Christs' Hospital, but whose liking for "the bottle" had rather got the better of him. I'll stop there!!

When Harry Gabb (Master of the Music at the Chapel Royal, and Sub-organist of St Paul's, in the days when the two jobs could be combined) received his MVO in ? 1961? some of us choristers at St Paul's (including Martin Cooke's big brother Richard) demanded to know what these initials stood for. We were not familiar with them. He told us (with a twinkle in his eye) ...."Merely Very Old"

Do keep Henry at London Bridge on your list of things to do in London. I'm sure he will still be there, as the Main Board of Network Rail have taken an interest, and we are confident that his licence will be renewed. Behind the scenes a search is in progress for suitable sites on other stations. Putting out the programmes for the Cathedral Chorus does not feature on the Chairman's Job Description, but it was expedient that I did so. I realised about 15 minutes before the start that they weren't there, and that the Virger who normally made sure they were had retired during covid. Locally-stationed Wandsmen only had a handful of copies, so I had to go all the way to the West Door to find a box full, return, and dish them out with minutes to spare. Didn't have time to check out the second row for people I know!!

Good to hear of your efforts with the school, BAM. Best of luck!!

I am sorry to hear of your disappointment about the edited version, but, imperfect as it may have been, it has projected the pipe organ into the public domain in a way that has rarely been achieved - and on Christmas Eve!! . The original film was made, privately, over a year ago, and it was too long for the slot that was available on BBC4. Something had to be left out. The wonderful experience of the Seventh Day Adventists and the youngsters learning the organ there may be the subject of a future programme, methinks. The Henry Jones at London Bridge was only installed in August 2022, and couldn't be slotted in to a programme that was already too long. Let's see what happens! I must, of course, declare and interest.....I'm a trustee of PIPE UP FOR PIPE ORGANS | Heritage charity fighting to save the King of Instruments (pipe-up.org.uk)

I am sorry that you found the programme disappointing, but I must point out that it was not aimed at members of the organ fraternity such as you and me, but at the other 99 percent of the population who have no idea about what pipe organs are all about. The feedback that I have is that the time spent on things which we know all about, and the guy with the house organ was of great interest to them!!

To get the full background on this organ, visit the website of the Charity behind this initiative - Pipeup4pipeorgans Anna is a keen supporter. She was only able to make these videos as she was at a loose end on Sunday. Her gig for Saturday night (Last Night of the Proms) having been cancelled.

I'd forgotten that the Willis on Wheels is, more formally, the Stainer Organ. Martin and I both remember that from our days at St Paul's, before Manders reconstructed it and gave it a case. In its previous case-less incarnation it was so compact that it would (only just) fit through the gates to the north Quire Aisle, were it was parked in a bay which it shared with stepladders and the machines for cleaning the floor. I punches way above its weight, and was wheeled out under the dome for about 6 months in about 1961 and accompanied all the services while the main organ was being overhauled. I did think about suggesting the London Bridge organ should be on wheels, but that isn't really practicable since the floor slopes. Only about 1:80 - but that's enough to require shims under one side.

There is massive interest in and support for this project. It has recently been quite difficult to get any work done as passers by keep dropping in and saying hello! Anna Lapwood has posted a video and made very supportive comments on her Website and Facebook page. I've told Tom Daggett that "we're putting an organ on London Bridge Station. He, quite understandably , assumed it was a digital organ, and was amazed and enthused when I said it was a Pipe Organ. He's having a think....

Correct, Martin. This particular campaign is not about digital organs.

Don't be afraid, Mr Bouffant. There are security cameras everywhere, and one directly above the organ. Martin had to mitre bottom C on the Bourdon to avoid having to move the camera.

Do send me a private message, Mr Handsoff. The London Bridge installation is intended (by Pipe Up 4 Pipe Organs, at least) to be permanent but part of the bigger picture that we're trying to address is that "there are plenty more where this came from..." so perhaps we could find you another similar one..... There are several in store at the moment, and the storage landlord is threatening to give us notice, so we are also looking for temporary storage space. All suggestions/leads welcome

I can shed some light, if I may.... The mover and shaker behind this is Martin Renshaw, Organ Builder. He has also been instrumental in setting up a new Charity, Pipeup4Pipe organs https://www.pipe-up.org.uk/ whose aims include "getting the organ out of its traditional,dusty, fusty setting and bringing it to life for hopefully, a new, young, appreciative audience" ...to quote Adnosad. I'm one of the Trustees. The photos which Choir Man found were taken by a Times photographer and one was used to illustrate an article last Saturday (p38). The whole project has attracted a lot of interest, e.g. from Anna Lapwood on her Facebook page. Martin has led a team of volunteers who have assembled the instrument, and it's been tuned. It is not currently available to the general public, as it needs to be inspected by the Station security team, who may want some of its nooks and crannies blanked off or covered with mesh. The station electrician has to fit the 10 minute timer on the blower power supply. (This will be the only electrically blown organ in the world where you need never worry whether you turned the blower off!) That's all going to happen next week, and the wraps are due to come off completely on Monday August 1st. The organ is in Stainer Street (South) which is a former Public Road running through a vault under the platforms which has become part of the station concourse following the reconstruction of the station a few years ago. Once this has been established as a successful venture, the idea is to look for other venues.......

I wonder if anyone else remembers Frasers's Music shop in Bedford? As a teenager in the 1960s my parents opened an account there, and I was able to call in and "purchase" organ music whenever I liked, receiving an invoice with no price on it. That would be added later, I was told. Months went by and my parents received nothing by way of a statement, and they asked what was happening. They received a bill (which they paid) for about half of what I had actually had! I must have told the shop assistant in the sheet music dept. (Mr Neville) that I was having problems finding somewhere to practice in the holidays (no problem in term time because I was a boarder and had access to the school chapel) He must have told his boss, and the rather formidable Miss (Mrs?) Fraser then contacted me to say that in their store was a "Malkin" piano pedalboard, which I could have. I jumped at that idea, and rigged it up on our second-best home piano. We never received an invoice for that, despite requesting one. Sadly the shop is no longer there. If they weren't very good at collecting money that might explain it. Electronic organs have now rendered pedal pianos a thing of the past, but my (or perhaps, Frasers's) Malkin board was donated to the St Giles International Organ School for use in pedalling classes on the summer course.

A church I was once involved with had pews with no pew runners or permanent cushions, which was deemed acceptable for services as the sermons (which were good) were usually short and to the point. For concerts and organ recitals they had a cupboard full of an eclectic collection of donated cushions. These were hired out to concert-goers, with the proceeds going straight into the organ fund!

I had some involvement at RAH during the final stages of planning the re-build around 20 years ago. Ian Bell asked me to look at the front pipes and the their distorted feet with my Structural Engineer's hat on. My recollection is that at first I really couldn't understand why they had not collapsed completely. If I'd been tasked with designing a component that was guaranteed to have structural problems, I would probably have suggested a tall, thin, soft metal tube with an inverted cone at its base! Access inside the instrument was not easy, but I found enough nooks and crannies from which to get a reasonable impression of what was going on, and that made me feel better. Some of the feet had clearly been renewed in thicker metal than the original. The pipes had multiple restraints on their inside faces, all based on the standard lateral restraint detail, comprising a small diameter vertical tube soldered to the surface of the pipe and fitted over a vertical pin that was fixed to the timber frame. That detail is normally involves just one pin per pipe, and is intended just to provide lateral restraint. In this case there were multiple small diameter tubes which were fitted right down at the base of the pins, gaining vertical support from the frame. The style and workmanship varied, suggesting that there had been multiple attempts at mitigation by different people, and the locations were somewhat ad-hoc, based on where there were sturdy bits of frame to connect to. I recall suggesting that this arrangement appeared to be working, but that it defied structural analysis. A greater margin of safety could be achieved by increasing the number of restraints and adding support points to the frame. I called this "Structural Velcro!" I had no further involvement, but it sounds as if that suggestion was taken up, and that it's come in handy with this recent damage.

Thank you, Rowland, for your kind words. I wouldn't go so far as to class myself as an "expert" on Hunter, but I do have experience. As far as I know the Hunter company records have not survived, but there is correspondence in Willis's archives relating to the financial arrangements surrounding their absorption into Willis in 1937. I have a couple of unpublished Opus lists (which are not the same!!) but neither of these includes Brownhill Baptist Church. However I can see from the NPOR photos that the Brownhill instrument is typical of what they were producing between, say 1905 and 1925, so it definitely is a Hunter. Somewhere inside someone will have written the name of the church it was built for, but that might be anywhere!! I have worked on several of these, and I can see that under the leadership of Robert Hunter (Alfred's son) they developed some fairly standard ways of doing things. I suspect that they batch-produced some components. For example, their chests and under- actions usually have 62 pallets/motors, presumably so the decision as to which would be the C side could be made late in the process. They produced stop mechanisms that always had an even number of stops, so where an odd number was required, there will be a "spare" hiding behind the jamb. Their pneumatic actions were standard. Their pipe-rack fronts were made up of pipes from the 16ft and 8ft Open Diapasons, slotted at the back to allow the tops of the pipes to follow symmetrical lines - no casework or shades were anticipated. They often did not use the bottom 5 or 6 16ft pipes in the display, but placed them inside on a short sliderless chest. I see that's what happened at Brownhill - though it seems they finished up borrowing from the Bourdon and not installing the bottom metal pipes The Brownhill instrument is described as "unplayable" and I wonder what that means. Hunters used good quality materials and had a skilled workforce. It is normally decay in the leatherwork that causes them to become unplayable - either in the primary reservoirs (no wind) or in the motors for individual notes in the under-actions. They can also suffer from lead tubes falling out. All those problems can be dealt with quite straightforwardly by re-leathering and the judicious application of hot-glue. If the soundboards themselves are split, that's a different kettle of fish.... A key factor in determining what is involved in getting one of these worthy instruments going again is access for removing components that need releathering. On some instruments this is easy. Timber panelling is removable, and then you just have to work out how to wriggle into the interior and remove parts. Others can be a nightmare, with everything squeezed into sold brick chambers. Peter - if you would like me to come and have a look - out of interest - do send me a private message. I don't live far away!

I am nearing the end of a project to complete a 100 year old Hunter organ, using genuine Hunter material of appropriate scale etc. Over the years I have accumulated a lot of material which either I had to take to get what else I wanted, or which turned out not to be quite the right thing. The time has come to start disposing of that. I have about 15 ivory stop knobs, and 2 x 61 note manuals with the white keys faced with ivory - both produced in Hunter's workshop about 100 years ago. I acquired these before the latest Ivory Legislation came into force. I realise that I cannot sell them - but can I give them away - e.g. as thank-you presents to individuals who have helped this project to happen over the years? I can't find anything on the internet about giving things away!!! Does anyone have any suggestions as to where I should be looking?

Yes - and I still remember an occasion when my assistant (it was all about delegation) produced the wrong one and I made a mad dash up the stairs to get the right one, with minutes to spare.

Wood's Eb Services are a nightmare for Music Boys and Choir Librarians. He chose 2 different publishers, neither of whom admits to the existence of the other, so there are no numbers on either! They have to be added by hand - or by a John Bull Printing rubber stamp....

Indeed.!

Corpus does indeed have a 3-manual Mander, installed in 1968, and dedicated during my first term as an undergraduate there. It has EP action because the physical proportions of the organ gallery were such that it was deemed impossible to fit a three-manual tracker instrument in. The organ was funded by a single large bequest from an alumnus, who stipulated that it had to be spent on the Chapel. The Chapel didn't "need" much spent on it, being well maintained and fit-for-purpose, but the organ was second rate, and the decision was made to replace it with the Mander. Money was not an issue - except to the extent that it proved difficult to spend all that was available! The answer to that was pure tin front pipes, a handsome new organ case, and..a zimbelstern. The principal organ consultant was John Dykes Bower (a former organ scholar), whose brother Stephen designed the case.

I found this quotation easier to understand when taken in its full context. Below the main body of the advert are two sentences : "Applications are particularly encouraged from female, UKME and disabled candidates who are under-represented in the Cathedral and Chapter". followed by "Previous Cathedral experience is not essential".

Thank you Owen. What a fascinating idea. And it offers the prospect of an entirely new and fully auditable basis for calculating organists' fees - by the note....?