Hillie2412

  Special delivery   Here’s a test for you   What is 16 feet high, made of beautiful poplar wood, gradually tapered top to bottom, and has to sit on a heavy wooden boot   Why, of course, it’s a CCCC resonator, one of 12 lovely new pipes to make my new contra trombone stop   Just recently there was a special delivery by van, all the way from York (where I’m told there is an even more famous organ, believe it or not).   Inside the van were some lovely new trombone resonators, some older ones resonators made by one of my friends 100 years ago, and 42 boots - one for each of these lovely pipes   These trombone pipes needed special attention, so a handpicked team of friends (handpicked as such care was needed in the task ahead) unloaded the van, then managed to order them by size (that is also a skilled job) before posing them for photos, and then moving them to the north aisle of my Abbey.   Their final move will be to the very top...

  What’s this about? Does anyone know why there is so much fuss about a C major chord?   My friend Mr Nigel keeps on about this chord - he really wants to start practising it, he says, but can’t do so until I’m finally completed and in tune   He also says its not any C major chord.   It is a famous chord.   It is a big fat fff chord played with most of my pipes, new and old.   He really needs to start practising it to be sure of getting it right, with all the nuances it needs   And apparently its needed for a piece by a very famous French composer   -   a piece with lots of tunes (just for a change   -   it is French after all), a very big orchestra, and lots of people will come to my Abbey just to hear this?   So what’s all the fuss about?   Do tell me if you know!   Editor note:   here are two clues for you to help Hillie work this out!!  

  A very very famous visitor   Dear friends   I assume you all have pocket diaries, although some of you might also be as modern as me and use New Technology……………………….   In October, we are going to have a very famous person coming to play me   A clue   -   he played me beautifully just before Mr Gary began to take me apart and send me to sleep;   in Birmingham, he plays another organ by Mr William’s family, one even older (and bigger!) than me;   and his initials remind you of a famous annual motorcycle event   I will say no more about him, but you MUST all come to hear him play   In his concert he will include some music especially in the memory of Miss Catherine, who sadly is no longer with us, and never heard any of my new sounds.   So that’s another reason to come to Mr XX’s concert, a concert which is of course………………………. my OPENING RECITAL!!   Wow, that will be soooooooooo exciting.   ...

A new little friend While I was asleep, a new friend arrived in my Abbey   This new friend is much smaller than me   -   she has just 240 pipes, and of course I will soon have 10 times as many.   Unlike me, she has no pedals and no double risers, just a single short trunk   Her name is Boxie, she is about 30 years young, and was made appropriately by Mr Church   She does look a bit like a crate, with a flat top and doors that open when she is playing, so that all her lovely pipes can be seen.   Some pipes are wood, but more are made of metal   Boxie makes such a sweet sound   -   very bright and chirpy   -   and her sounds carry so well in my lovely Abbey.   I also have to admit she is very good at playing music from olden times   -   tudor, renaissance and plainsong   -   but even when she grows up, she will never be able to play any of Sir Edward’s lovely music, nor any of that modern ...

  Bent pipes   I know you’re wondering about all the different pipes I have   -   all the different shapes and sizes   -   and will write some words about this.   But first, great news, for Mr Gary has just managed to work out the angles on some pipes that weren’t straight     Mr William, who did know best, gave me some lovely 8’ stringy sounding pipes for my choir division.   These pipes still look lovely, but in 1958, when all my beautifully clear sounding choir flue pipes were hidden away in a box with shutters, the largest ones didn’t fit   -   so 12 bass pipes were dismembered, and then stuck back together again at odd angles, in order to fit inside this smallish box.   What a mistake that was; the pipes didn’t really fit and we lost much of our sound, and the shutters on the front side of the box were never able to open properly   Anyway, that’s in the past for, as I’ve already told you, nice Mr Gary...

Another book about me I’ve already told you how excited I was last year to hear there was to be a book about me   Apparently this is been sooo successful (well, obviously it was going to be) that there is to be a Second Edition…………………….   This second edition is being written right now, but I won’t be allowed to see it until it has been published   The First Edition (a best seller as I’ve already said) talked about an even older organ, talked about my lovely building, and described all that has happened to me over the last 109 years   The new edition describes all Mr Gary’s important work over the months while I was asleep.   It has very interesting detail about all my new pipes, saying where they’ve come from, and also talks about all the changes made to make me sound even better than before   I’m even told there will be Corrections   -   which apparently always happens when a book is updated   So friends, do start s...

  I’m now thoroughly modern would you believe!   Soon after I was switched off last year, Mr Gary removed all my old lead tubes and a lot of my old pneumatic motors.   I’m sure you remember that the lead tubes had compressed air whizzing through, the pulses activating leather hinged switches   Now I have thin coloured wire heading in all directions, masses of curious looking magnet switches, and what I’m told are very complicated looking boards making sense of all the electronic pulses   My lovely console too is now all electric.   It used to have an electric light and switch, a switch to turn on my blowing mechanisms, another electric socket that was too old to use and might have been used for a heater to warm my bench, and a couple of small lights connected to a switch at the back of the Abbey to signal when something important was about to happen.   Beyond that, everything was pneumatic, just as it had been ever since 1911   Now...

  Pedals   Dear follower, I’ve already told you about my rather grubby keyboards and how they now look fantastic   Well, my pedals were also not looking very good.   Except they were a good source of food for all the munchers underneath   -   I quite sustained a whole colony of munching insects, so much so that there wasn’t a great deal left of some of my pedal sticks   So they have had to be replaced   And also new springs had to be added.   My organist friends were complaining that pedalling had become such hard work (it’s always hard I’m told but, with worn springs, the pedals were not responding to vigorous shoe technique) and so they also had to have attention   Did you know that organists’ feet also have toe levers to press   -   just as fingers and thumbs have buttons to push    -   so that stops pop out or in.   And a further complication is that organists’ feet have to control th...