I’m now thoroughly modern

 

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 my console is all electronics and modern.  But you won’t see any difference, because all of that technology is tucked away behind my console, and from the front it looks as it always has, just much smarter

 

I’ve even now got a TV screen  -  not for my organist friends to watch Test Cricket, but linked to a small camera high up among my pipes so they can more easily follow The Beat

 

But I do still have pneumatic motors, and very smart they look too with new white leather hinges to make sure they work properly again 

 

Will all of this make a difference?  Well of course it will.  I used to leak like a sieve, so there was never enough wind under my lovely pipes and they didn’t always sound as they should.  And from time to time there would be Problems and Missing Notes  -  and even sometimes my organist friends had to use their cache of 1953 newspaper to plug gaps, or had to use drawing pin technology to make things work properly.  And I’m sure our congregations will enjoy hearing lots of lovely pipe sounds, without the gushing of escaping wind. 

 

But my organist friends will no longer be able to blame sluggish actions, or missing notes for any blemishes in their playing!




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