Organ Update 6
UPDATE Compiled by Boz Oram boz@historyinharmony.com www.historyinharmony.com Welcome to all of the new arrivals onto this email update. To those of you who are new, I hope you enjoy this listing and if you want past updates, please let me know - they will of course be out of date. Contact me at boz.oram@andover52.fsnet.co.uk **************************************** From John Smith Dear Boz Perhaps you could announce the next gathering of the Amateur Organ Builders group (A.O.B.s). About 20 of us are going to meet up for the St Albans Mechanical Christmas Concert on the 12th of Dec. This is always a bit special with guest instruments, it starts at 2-15 information and advance bookings can be made by phoning 01727 873896 or 01727 869693 this concert is invariably a sell out so phoning is recommended The AOBs will be meeting at the nearby Camp Pub for a lunch starting at 12-00. Email johnsmithbusker@supanet.com for more information Cheers John ********************************************* FOPS AGM. I have been asked by a couple of you from the update group about the date and venue - so to remind you - The FOPS AGM is to be held at the Bass Museum and the evening's entertainment is at the Midland Hotel with a contact day at the Crich Tramway Museum. The AGM is on the 2nd April and is at the Bass Museum on Saturday with evenings entertainment in Derby at the Midland Hotel and the next day (Sunday 3rd April) is at Crich Tramway Museum. All are welcome to join the Society here at Crich, which includes organs, trams and plenty of other delights. All who want to partake in the FOPS AGM weekend please book through History in Harmony ( tours@historyinharmony.com ) for either the whole package of Friday night, Saturday and Sunday with transfers (should you need it) to all events from the 4* Midland Hotel to either the AGM at the Bass museum or Crich Tramway Museum (or both); just the Saturday evening dinner, or maybe just a couple of bits of the whole package. The package is as flexible as possible. prices for the week-end: Full package: £125 sharing a twin, includes 2 nights half board with transport to AGM and Crich including entrance to Crich Tramway Museum. Single room price £145. 1 night bed and breakfast £50 sharing a twin - £60 single Dinner only Saturday £20 **************************************** Remember The second Gavioli gathering is due to be held at North Newington sports and social club, nr. Banbury, Oxon on the Sunday 2nd January 2005, The line up at this moment is to be the 87 key instruments of Jeffery Shackell and rarely seen instrument of Dan Shorey, as well as the 89 key instruments of Kevin Gamlin and the extremely well travelled 1890c Gavioli of Brian and the family Wells. The club house will also host a selection of the smaller hand-turned instruments to keep you all amused whilst drinking and eating the varied selection of food on hand. All proceeds from this excellent event will go to the Helen House Hospice and the starting time will be from 11 am on Sunday 2nd January 2005. The British Historic Travelling organ will be out in force! ******************************************** Preston - Kent Also the collection of Michael List-Brain will be holding the winter open weekend on the 1st and 2nd of January 2005. Mechanical Organs in his collection include the 89 key Verbeeck 'concert' organ (ex- Wilkies (New Brighton), the rare 89 key Remond Duwyn dance organ and a 112 key Mortier which has just received attention from David Burville, the same as the 63 key Bruder that belongs to Bill and Rosanna Harris from the USA. Also in the collection is an excellent display of repatriated steam engines and traction engines from South America and goodness only knows where else - the sizes of the machines are quite enormous plus there are working steam engines built in situ for all time. Food and beverages are served throughout the days – remember to take some warm clothing though as this is winter. Further information can be found at www.prestonservices.co.uk ****************************************** Hungerford Christmas Event on Friday 10th December 2004. Hungerford Victorian Fayre has been going for quite a number of years now and actually took over the whole high street, with a night-time carnival procession of all the festive goings on as well as Showman’s Engines, traction engines, models, and there was a whole host of eaty type foods such as chestnuts, brothy soup and plenty of warming houses such as pubs, takeaways etc. Furthermore, there was a well sized fairground as well as a few of organs playing to an enormous public. From small street organs, to the French Sound right through to the German sound. The largest instrument was the Ruth of Mrs Margaret Cook which was sounding really good with plenty of people commenting on the good selection of music being played. Also featured was the fairground sound of Marenghi plus a couple of the smaller hand-turned instruments, one of which belonging to Dave and Joan Wright. These were certainly the better instrument for the operator as the hand turning helped in keeping the person doing the work and bit warm! The show is possibly the best Victorian show locally for quite a radius and as a result, there were many thousands of people enjoying the atmosphere of it all. The town of Hungerford was featured on the TV the other evening, but for another reason - that awful day in 1987 when a gun wielding male went berserk and shot 16 people dead and a further 15 badly injured. At the time, I had just bought a property one week before in that very town. All very frightening, especially as my wife was with our first child in the property on her own. I was dredging lakes in Sussex with two steam engines and it was before the days of the mobile phone. It brought it all back - no escape, no easy communication and having to drive miles for a public telephone box only to find that it had been vandalised. Yes, just a few memories from a delightful town that has not dwelt in the past. ***************************************** Not enough Christmas Pud? On the 12th Dec 2004. It's the Teddy Reed Open Day Plantation Road, Amersham, Bucks UK. An excellent venue with (and I stand corrected here... maybe!) 2 X Gavioli 89 key, Marenghi sleighbell organ 89 key, Charles Hooghuys 70 key, 72 key Gebr Decap, plus others, plus food, drinks, plus, plus etc.... Well worth going to especially as the venue is donation only and warrants your support especially as it is the best of meeting places - remember food, drink, warmth but above all some of the best instruments in the Country and some of the nicest people attending. ************************************** Its Joke time...... From Dave Roberts......... A little old lady answered a knock on the door one day, only to be confronted by a well-dressed young man carrying a vacuum cleaner. "Good morning," said the young man. "If I could take a couple minutes of your time, I would like to demonstrate the very latest in high-powered vacuum cleaners." "Clear off!" said the old lady. "I haven't got any money" and she proceeded to close the door. Quick as a flash, the young man wedged his foot in the door and pushed it wide open. "Don't be too hasty!" he said. "Not until you have at least seen my demonstration." And with that, he emptied a bucket of horse manure all over her hallway carpet. "If this vacuum cleaner does not remove all traces of this horse manure from your carpet, Madam, I will personally eat the remainder." "Well," she said, "I hope you've got a jolly good appetite, because the electricity was cut off this morning." Thanks for cleaning that one up for me Dave! (no he wasn't the salesman in the story, he just cleaned up the joke from what it was................ oh never mind) ********************************** Dates for your diary Crich Tramway Museum Crich Tramway Museum, the UK’s premier Tram Museum has a Santa Special open day on the 11/12 as well as the 18/19 of December. A good place to go to for all of the family, especially as Santa will be there! How he manages to get to all of the venues is quite remarkable don’t you think. Further details at www.tramway.co.uk and email info@tramway.co.uk *************************************** Watercress Line From David Snow of the Watercress Line railway, a rather special re-enactment for those who want to see a bit of role playing – the railway will be open for a WW2 winter depiction of what it would be like during those dark days. The day is on the 27th December. Further information is available from www.watercressline.co.uk or email them at info@watercressline.co.uk As a further little bit of fun, anyone who wants to have a go at being a locomotive driver - there are courses that range from £175 to £250 – again please contact the Mid-Hants Watercress Line at Alresford SO24 9JG. *************************************** Traction Engine Driving For those people who want to go on the road driving steam engines, then please contact Jonathan Wheeler on www.wheeler-prints.co.uk who will give you the lovely countryside around Bardwell in Suffolk on the Ruston and Hornsby traction engine Oliver, based around the family’s working Windmill. **************************************** Model Railway Exhibition The Model Engineering Exhibition is from 29 – 30th December at Sandown Park Exhibition Centre and is open from 10am. Check beforehand on 01353 654429 ************************************** Sinsheim - Museum Tour Talking of Model Engineering Exhibitions, remember that History in Harmony has a few places spare (but I mean a few) to the Sinsheim Model Engineering Exhibition in Germany. The tour is also your opportunity of going to see some fantastic German Museums, including the transport museum at Sinsheim, Aunty Wainrights, or the Fahzueg-Museum Marxzell (recently features in the magazine Old Glory, the fabulous Schlumph Collection and the Technik Museum at Speyer which was started as an overspill museum to the one at Sinsheim. Price £295 sharing a twin room. For further details, contact tours@historyinharmony.com The Engineering Exhibition in Sinsheim is also tone of the largest of its type and the 7¼" track runs for some 5 kilometres inside the building with live steam. ************************************ Helmond - Holland From Raymonde Grimmett via the Worlds Fair weekly newspaper, the Helmond Council in Holland is to demolish the Gaviolizaal Museum which houses the two Gaudin instruments of 112 and 98 keys, plus many other instruments which include a rare wooden framed piano-forte and a very large and superb collection of accordions. According to Raymonde, there is a volunteer, Paul Jacobs who is making sure that the instruments are being looked after and played on a regular basis in the hope that they will keep in good order. It brings back memories of the desperate days of the collection in Haarlem, also in Holland that had similar difficulties – fortunately with a lot of support and the tenacity of those involved, this collection has now found new premises with which to cement a new start. Certainly what I saw from our trip over there just four weeks ago, with a big helping of enthusiasm and dogged determination, these places can survive. ***************************************** Noyce's Gallopers I have just returned from a meeting with the Travel Trust Association in London and more of that in a later bulletin as it will ultimately be of benefit to you if you require our services. Linda and I did a walk around the illuminations of London dropping into Regents Street, Carnaby Street, Oxford Street and into Leicester Square, where Noyce’s Gallopers are being presented for the duration up to Christmas. The organ is not being played though as the sound level is possibly too high, however a recording is being played instead at a lower level. Nearby is the carillon that plays to its hearts content at specific times from the Swiss building and gives renditions of Christmas songs and a bit of Bach. ************************************** SODEM The Society of Drivers and Enginemen have their annual Gentlemen's Day out and the event will start at Leicester Square on the 17th December 10.30 prompt. ************************************** Just a small point, can you give me more notice on your special dates as I am not here at this address all of the time and don't want to miss you out. I would also guess that the recipients to this update would prefer to get information on a weekly or fortnightly basis so that they can make plans and I don't clog up their computers. ************************************* North Newington Back to the gathering at North Newington, the line up at this moment is to be the 87 key instruments of Jeffery Shackell and Dan Shorey as well as the 89 key instruments of Kevin Gamlin and the well travelled 1890c Gavioli of Brian and the family Wells. The club house will also host a selection of the smaller hand-turned instruments to keep you all amused whilst drinking and eating the varied selection of food on hand. All proceeds from this excellent event will go to the Helen House Hospice and the starting time will be from 11 am on Sunday 2nd January 2005. ************************************ That’s it so far – please could you supply me with any information as this email is as much yours as mine to enjoy and is going to many different countries of the world – if you want to be anonymous, that’s fine - all subjects are welcome to be discussed. If you want to use any of this material, please do, but please mention History in Harmony as the source and give the email address boz.oram@andover52.fsnet.co.uk As ever, should you wish to not be on this update, then please let me know at boz.oram@andover52.fsnet.co.uk and I’ll remove you forthwith. Conversely, if you know of any other people who would benefit or enjoy this, please get them to contact me at the same address. With kind wishes Boz Oram tours@historyinharmony.com www.historyinharmony.com tel +UK (0)8700 113994 fax +UK (0) 1980 621900 Published on iMOD with kind permission of Boz Oram.
UPDATE Compiled by Boz Oram boz@historyinharmony.com www.historyinharmony.com Welcome to all of the new arrivals onto this email update. To those of you who are new, I hope you enjoy this listing and if you want past updates, please let me know - they will of course be out of date. Contact me at boz.oram@andover52.fsnet.co.uk **************************************** From John Smith Dear Boz Perhaps you could announce the next gathering of the Amateur Organ Builders group (A.O.B.s). About 20 of us are going to meet up for the St Albans Mechanical Christmas Concert on the 12th of Dec. This is always a bit special with guest instruments, it starts at 2-15 information and advance bookings can be made by phoning 01727 873896 or 01727 869693 this concert is invariably a sell out so phoning is recommended The AOBs will be meeting at the nearby Camp Pub for a lunch starting at 12-00. Email johnsmithbusker@supanet.com for more information Cheers John ********************************************* FOPS AGM. I have been asked by a couple of you from the update group about the date and venue - so to remind you - The FOPS AGM is to be held at the Bass Museum and the evening's entertainment is at the Midland Hotel with a contact day at the Crich Tramway Museum. The AGM is on the 2nd April and is at the Bass Museum on Saturday with evenings entertainment in Derby at the Midland Hotel and the next day (Sunday 3rd April) is at Crich Tramway Museum. All are welcome to join the Society here at Crich, which includes organs, trams and plenty of other delights. All who want to partake in the FOPS AGM weekend please book through History in Harmony ( tours@historyinharmony.com ) for either the whole package of Friday night, Saturday and Sunday with transfers (should you need it) to all events from the 4* Midland Hotel to either the AGM at the Bass museum or Crich Tramway Museum (or both); just the Saturday evening dinner, or maybe just a couple of bits of the whole package. The package is as flexible as possible. prices for the week-end: Full package: £125 sharing a twin, includes 2 nights half board with transport to AGM and Crich including entrance to Crich Tramway Museum. Single room price £145. 1 night bed and breakfast £50 sharing a twin - £60 single Dinner only Saturday £20 **************************************** Remember The second Gavioli gathering is due to be held at North Newington sports and social club, nr. Banbury, Oxon on the Sunday 2nd January 2005, The line up at this moment is to be the 87 key instruments of Jeffery Shackell and rarely seen instrument of Dan Shorey, as well as the 89 key instruments of Kevin Gamlin and the extremely well travelled 1890c Gavioli of Brian and the family Wells. The club house will also host a selection of the smaller hand-turned instruments to keep you all amused whilst drinking and eating the varied selection of food on hand. All proceeds from this excellent event will go to the Helen House Hospice and the starting time will be from 11 am on Sunday 2nd January 2005. The British Historic Travelling organ will be out in force! ******************************************** Preston - Kent Also the collection of Michael List-Brain will be holding the winter open weekend on the 1st and 2nd of January 2005. Mechanical Organs in his collection include the 89 key Verbeeck 'concert' organ (ex- Wilkies (New Brighton), the rare 89 key Remond Duwyn dance organ and a 112 key Mortier which has just received attention from David Burville, the same as the 63 key Bruder that belongs to Bill and Rosanna Harris from the USA. Also in the collection is an excellent display of repatriated steam engines and traction engines from South America and goodness only knows where else - the sizes of the machines are quite enormous plus there are working steam engines built in situ for all time. Food and beverages are served throughout the days – remember to take some warm clothing though as this is winter. Further information can be found at www.prestonservices.co.uk ****************************************** Hungerford Christmas Event on Friday 10th December 2004. Hungerford Victorian Fayre has been going for quite a number of years now and actually took over the whole high street, with a night-time carnival procession of all the festive goings on as well as Showman’s Engines, traction engines, models, and there was a whole host of eaty type foods such as chestnuts, brothy soup and plenty of warming houses such as pubs, takeaways etc. Furthermore, there was a well sized fairground as well as a few of organs playing to an enormous public. From small street organs, to the French Sound right through to the German sound. The largest instrument was the Ruth of Mrs Margaret Cook which was sounding really good with plenty of people commenting on the good selection of music being played. Also featured was the fairground sound of Marenghi plus a couple of the smaller hand-turned instruments, one of which belonging to Dave and Joan Wright. These were certainly the better instrument for the operator as the hand turning helped in keeping the person doing the work and bit warm! The show is possibly the best Victorian show locally for quite a radius and as a result, there were many thousands of people enjoying the atmosphere of it all. The town of Hungerford was featured on the TV the other evening, but for another reason - that awful day in 1987 when a gun wielding male went berserk and shot 16 people dead and a further 15 badly injured. At the time, I had just bought a property one week before in that very town. All very frightening, especially as my wife was with our first child in the property on her own. I was dredging lakes in Sussex with two steam engines and it was before the days of the mobile phone. It brought it all back - no escape, no easy communication and having to drive miles for a public telephone box only to find that it had been vandalised. Yes, just a few memories from a delightful town that has not dwelt in the past. ***************************************** Not enough Christmas Pud? On the 12th Dec 2004. It's the Teddy Reed Open Day Plantation Road, Amersham, Bucks UK. An excellent venue with (and I stand corrected here... maybe!) 2 X Gavioli 89 key, Marenghi sleighbell organ 89 key, Charles Hooghuys 70 key, 72 key Gebr Decap, plus others, plus food, drinks, plus, plus etc.... Well worth going to especially as the venue is donation only and warrants your support especially as it is the best of meeting places - remember food, drink, warmth but above all some of the best instruments in the Country and some of the nicest people attending. ************************************** Its Joke time...... From Dave Roberts......... A little old lady answered a knock on the door one day, only to be confronted by a well-dressed young man carrying a vacuum cleaner. "Good morning," said the young man. "If I could take a couple minutes of your time, I would like to demonstrate the very latest in high-powered vacuum cleaners." "Clear off!" said the old lady. "I haven't got any money" and she proceeded to close the door. Quick as a flash, the young man wedged his foot in the door and pushed it wide open. "Don't be too hasty!" he said. "Not until you have at least seen my demonstration." And with that, he emptied a bucket of horse manure all over her hallway carpet. "If this vacuum cleaner does not remove all traces of this horse manure from your carpet, Madam, I will personally eat the remainder." "Well," she said, "I hope you've got a jolly good appetite, because the electricity was cut off this morning." Thanks for cleaning that one up for me Dave! (no he wasn't the salesman in the story, he just cleaned up the joke from what it was................ oh never mind) ********************************** Dates for your diary Crich Tramway Museum Crich Tramway Museum, the UK’s premier Tram Museum has a Santa Special open day on the 11/12 as well as the 18/19 of December. A good place to go to for all of the family, especially as Santa will be there! How he manages to get to all of the venues is quite remarkable don’t you think. Further details at www.tramway.co.uk and email info@tramway.co.uk *************************************** Watercress Line From David Snow of the Watercress Line railway, a rather special re-enactment for those who want to see a bit of role playing – the railway will be open for a WW2 winter depiction of what it would be like during those dark days. The day is on the 27th December. Further information is available from www.watercressline.co.uk or email them at info@watercressline.co.uk As a further little bit of fun, anyone who wants to have a go at being a locomotive driver - there are courses that range from £175 to £250 – again please contact the Mid-Hants Watercress Line at Alresford SO24 9JG. *************************************** Traction Engine Driving For those people who want to go on the road driving steam engines, then please contact Jonathan Wheeler on www.wheeler-prints.co.uk who will give you the lovely countryside around Bardwell in Suffolk on the Ruston and Hornsby traction engine Oliver, based around the family’s working Windmill. **************************************** Model Railway Exhibition The Model Engineering Exhibition is from 29 – 30th December at Sandown Park Exhibition Centre and is open from 10am. Check beforehand on 01353 654429 ************************************** Sinsheim - Museum Tour Talking of Model Engineering Exhibitions, remember that History in Harmony has a few places spare (but I mean a few) to the Sinsheim Model Engineering Exhibition in Germany. The tour is also your opportunity of going to see some fantastic German Museums, including the transport museum at Sinsheim, Aunty Wainrights, or the Fahzueg-Museum Marxzell (recently features in the magazine Old Glory, the fabulous Schlumph Collection and the Technik Museum at Speyer which was started as an overspill museum to the one at Sinsheim. Price £295 sharing a twin room. For further details, contact tours@historyinharmony.com The Engineering Exhibition in Sinsheim is also tone of the largest of its type and the 7¼" track runs for some 5 kilometres inside the building with live steam. ************************************ Helmond - Holland From Raymonde Grimmett via the Worlds Fair weekly newspaper, the Helmond Council in Holland is to demolish the Gaviolizaal Museum which houses the two Gaudin instruments of 112 and 98 keys, plus many other instruments which include a rare wooden framed piano-forte and a very large and superb collection of accordions. According to Raymonde, there is a volunteer, Paul Jacobs who is making sure that the instruments are being looked after and played on a regular basis in the hope that they will keep in good order. It brings back memories of the desperate days of the collection in Haarlem, also in Holland that had similar difficulties – fortunately with a lot of support and the tenacity of those involved, this collection has now found new premises with which to cement a new start. Certainly what I saw from our trip over there just four weeks ago, with a big helping of enthusiasm and dogged determination, these places can survive. ***************************************** Noyce's Gallopers I have just returned from a meeting with the Travel Trust Association in London and more of that in a later bulletin as it will ultimately be of benefit to you if you require our services. Linda and I did a walk around the illuminations of London dropping into Regents Street, Carnaby Street, Oxford Street and into Leicester Square, where Noyce’s Gallopers are being presented for the duration up to Christmas. The organ is not being played though as the sound level is possibly too high, however a recording is being played instead at a lower level. Nearby is the carillon that plays to its hearts content at specific times from the Swiss building and gives renditions of Christmas songs and a bit of Bach. ************************************** SODEM The Society of Drivers and Enginemen have their annual Gentlemen's Day out and the event will start at Leicester Square on the 17th December 10.30 prompt. ************************************** Just a small point, can you give me more notice on your special dates as I am not here at this address all of the time and don't want to miss you out. I would also guess that the recipients to this update would prefer to get information on a weekly or fortnightly basis so that they can make plans and I don't clog up their computers. ************************************* North Newington Back to the gathering at North Newington, the line up at this moment is to be the 87 key instruments of Jeffery Shackell and Dan Shorey as well as the 89 key instruments of Kevin Gamlin and the well travelled 1890c Gavioli of Brian and the family Wells. The club house will also host a selection of the smaller hand-turned instruments to keep you all amused whilst drinking and eating the varied selection of food on hand. All proceeds from this excellent event will go to the Helen House Hospice and the starting time will be from 11 am on Sunday 2nd January 2005. ************************************ That’s it so far – please could you supply me with any information as this email is as much yours as mine to enjoy and is going to many different countries of the world – if you want to be anonymous, that’s fine - all subjects are welcome to be discussed. If you want to use any of this material, please do, but please mention History in Harmony as the source and give the email address boz.oram@andover52.fsnet.co.uk As ever, should you wish to not be on this update, then please let me know at boz.oram@andover52.fsnet.co.uk and I’ll remove you forthwith. Conversely, if you know of any other people who would benefit or enjoy this, please get them to contact me at the same address. With kind wishes Boz Oram tours@historyinharmony.com www.historyinharmony.com tel +UK (0)8700 113994 fax +UK (0) 1980 621900 Published on iMOD with kind permission of Boz Oram.