Andrew Butler

Totally off-topic, I have just tried to PM but got the reply "S_L cannot receive messages" and I've mislaid your email address!

Didn't know Lee Ward had gone? Where to?

Oh absolutely - I have an online subscription to the Charente Libre. I have no desire to read The Times though 🙄

By paying?!

My first church organist's post at age 14 was on this organ in its original location - Oakfield Road Unitarian, Clifton, Bristol. It's on NPOR. https://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=N03855

Paywall sadly

All I remember is that he opened with BWV 593 and I was staggered at the articulation of the opening chords - I had always felt that I over-articulated them, but realised then that I actually under-articulated!

Indeed. I recall back in the 80s a visit there with the Bristol Organists Association, which he hosted - demonstrating both Walsall and Birmingham Town Hall organs to us.

Last time I heard him was at Rochester Cathedral in the late 1980s when he gave the opening recital after the rebuild.

Yes - that would be the one. I had the LP

I recall a R3 broadcast of Choral Evensong back in the mid 1980s when Swell to Great wasn't working very well, and Chris Manners (of Percy Daniel Organ Builders of Clevedon) who had a son in the choir, spent the broadcast inside the organ holding things together - literally!

It didn't work?

No fault of the NPOR It is only as good as the information submitted. If people can take the trouble to submit new surveys and corrections it will be as good as it can be.

If this had been on vinyl. I would already have worn out the "Coe Fen" track.

DS&P also had a branch on College Green

I for one would believe anything!! My first experience playing in an RC church was for a funeral. Beforehand, I asked the visiting Irish priest at what point the hymns would be sung. He replied "To be sure sorr, you joost play dem whenever ye loik!" I later heard that he had gone to the wrong cemetery for the burial.

Haven't been on here for a while so only just seen this. At my gaff in France (Confolens, Charente) faulty pedal contacts have reduced me to manuals-only (Church say it sounds fine so why bother getting them repaired?!) Christmas Eve: Preludes: Early German chorale preludes + Daquin "Noel sur les Flutes" Postlude: Renaissance Rondel (Andrew Fletcher) fudged manuals only version Christmas Day: Preludes: Various French Noels Postlude: Allegro Maestoso (Merkel) Again, fudged manuals only - played by request

Davis Bevan sadly passed away recently

After I made that comment on here, I was asked to do a wedding at Confolens and then ended up doing alternate Sundays. I was prepared to take it on permanently but there was a typically French mix-up! I emailed the PP to say I was interested, but he doesn't "do" emails personally - he gets the parish secretary to reply when she's there. In the meantime another English organist turned up and said he'd take it on and the PP assumed he was me!! The compromise is that we are now "Co-Titulaires" which I don't like TBH as there is no possibility of continuity, and it's difficult to plan music as sometimes (as at the moment) I end up doing several weeks because my colleague is away. I'm probably going to quietly withdraw once he's back!

This is an old news item about the disposal of the instrument prior to the Mander in 1985.

I don't understand what this thread is about?

Absolutely. Well said.

Very saddened to learn of the sudden death on Friday, of Martin Schellenberg, DOM at Beaminster Parish Church, formerly at Christchurch Priory and before that, Assistant at Bristol Cathedral. He was 62, and passed away at the Beaminster organ just before the first choir rehearsal after lifting of restrictions.

I am SO glad my organ playing days are over!! I missed it at first but I could not cope with all these rules and regulations as to how we are "allowed" to worship!

Sorry. This is all total balderdash. I am honestly glad I am out of the UK church music scene. I now live (and play occasionally) in France, where masked singing has been allowed since churches reopened. AND as for following "guidance" from a load of idiots who couldn't guide water out of a sieve.....!