The wandering organist

I can't believe how long it has taken for bookings to start coming in again after the 2020 lock-up of every church in the Kingdom. However, at long last I got  asked to play somewhere other than Brighton. OK, I have played here before, but it's still a change of scene. I played at Heene Church   on Sunday last. Heene is  a part of Worthing that predates Worthing. The word apparently means "high", it is the site of the old windmill (long gone) and is on the only high ground for some distance around. About 30' above sea-level, since you ask. The organ is still working, still uncleaned (last work was done in 1966, so it's a bit dusty in there), but the electronic "concert organ" has been taken out of service, and there seem to be no plans to plug it in again. (Just a couple of photoes to entertain. The organ facade was redesigned in 1966 to allow maximum sound to percolate from the chamber to the nave, as there is almost no egress from the west side. Al...

Well, I wandered again. Not far, St Botolph's, Heene, in Worthing, but it was a booking. An event nowadays. Sung eucharist, an anthem (Goss O Saviour of the World ) and some music before and after The choir was as good as ever, the sermon a bit "miserable sinner", intincted wafers, and the pipe organ ciphering on middle E on the Great, which rendered that manual unusable. So I played the hymns and voluntaries on the electronic. That had tenor E flat not working at all on the pedals, so I chose pieces which were in C major and E major (slightly modal E, leading note flattened every time it occurred in the pedal). The main thing is that, after such a long break from having to be responsible for leading the music in a service other than St Mary's Kemptown, the feelings I had of slight panic have returned after a good couple of decades absence. Probably all to the good, keeps me on my toes, and all that sort of thing. After lunch I decided I would like to go to choral eve...

I see that I haven't posted here for some while. Mostly laziness, I'm afraid, but a side order of moving home and this wretched virus has meant that some things have been put to one side. Moving home: I put the flat on the market in July 2019. Got an offer within three days and found somewhere to live. It turned out that the offer was from someone who couldn't afford it, and the place I found had a structural problem caused by next door trying to dissolve the garage (don't ask). Next, back on the market, and found a place (this time in a town I wanted to live in, not Littlehampton), and got another buyer. By November it was revealed that the buyer was a fantasist and I had to withdraw my offer on the place in Portslade. Generic bungalow of the same sort. Home sweet home! Come December I got another buyer (dear God!) but the over £5000 service charge for fireproofing, redecorating common ways and replacing the garage roofs became due, and so I was £5000 down. ...

Living and working in Worthing. Not the biggest/smallest/glammest/prettiest of towns, but I am lucky to live here. When I lived in Earls Court my car turned grey over the course of a day, but now I can drive home and stop for a brief wander on the beach. Bluer than the Mediterranean when last I saw it (February) and This misses the sparkle, the "innumerable laughter of the sea" as Dorothy L Sayers puts it. Refreshes the spirit wonderfully after a day at the office.

Well, where have I been? Having never been to a civil Remembrance day ceremony, I decided to do the Worthing one. I checked the website which said it started at 11 with the silence, followed by a march-past of local uniformed organisations. I thought this a little eccentric, so turned up about a quarter of an hour early to find about two to three hundred people there, scattered across Chapel Rd, which might be a bit of a challenge for the mach-past. A band was providing music on a sporadic basis, and at about five to the hour they ended Nimrod and there was a pause in proceedings. Well, I realised that the tannoy system must be faulty when at two minutes to the hour, a solo bugler sounded the last post. There had to have been some speech before that ("They shall not grow old..."). It was all the more obvious that things were not quite as they should be when, at 11am, with the maroon gone bang and the Town Hall bell chiming the hour the bugler was already halfway through so...

The other day, I saw someone wearing a T-shirt with the text "Surely not everyone  was kung-fu fighting?"

A picture of the west end from 2010 Well, being titular organist means you have to deal with the choir library, whether small, large, or middling. St Botolph's library is large for a parish church, a legacy of days of yore when the choir was all-male with the number of boys in double figures. Now it's just double figures and all adult, but at least as competent. Double-choir stuff is out of the window (only one bass and alto), but they can do pretty much anything else. The library. Well, I was in for a nasty shock when I looked inside the folders. I had decided I needed to know what we actually had. The official index was about 10 years out-of-date, and to find stuff just ignore the index's idea, which was based on the position in a pile in a double-width cubby-hole: eg 1 A 13, being first cubby-hole, left hand pile, 13th down from the top. Hmm. Someone had changed this into alphabetical order, dividing anthems from settings, but not updated the index. So, out with th...

Since January this year, I have been titular organist at St Botolph's church, Heene, in Worthing, so my wanderings have been reduced somewhat. My monthly wander to Holy Spirit , Southsea continues, and on the Sunday after Easter (known as "Low" Sunday, probably because of the number in the congregation is low) wandered with Cantores Vagantes to Salisbury Cathedral, one of England's gems. A "Father" Willis, built in 1876 and rebuilt with minimal change in 1934. Taking choir practice every week is a tie, but can be very rewarding. Today, I managed to overcome the missing pedal note (booked for repair in a week) and played a piece before the service on the extra organ, an electronic by Eminent. Widor's 5th Symphony, the 4th movement, a quiet one for strings and a solo 4' flute which can't be played on the pipe organ (no 4' flute). On this site , scroll down the page til you see 4 Adagio. It's the most gorgeous miniature and should be be...

A few weeks back the Churchwardens of St Botolph's, Heene, slightly twisted my arm and I agreed to take over as Organist & Choirmaster from next January, carrying on with the 2nd & 4th Sundays I had already agreed to do, with choir practices before those Sundays. Last night I turned up, having been told that the PCC would be meeting the previous Tuesday to confirm my appointment, and that they would tell the choir. I had also said that a 6-month trial period - for both parties - would be sensible. Bless them, they've only gone and appointed me from 1st October, whilst letting me carry on with the other churches who have already booked me. This flummoxed me a little, and I didn't get off to the best start with the choir practice. Very kind, but perhaps asking me? I am not complaining, just expressing the flummoxisation. Their website is this one: http://stbotolphsheene2015.com/ and beware of imitations. There are at least two other sites which purport to be the ...

I have spent two-and-a-half hours putting together a dossier of documents from the internet to find out if I and the Revenue have been wrong these last 21 years that I've been filling out (or in? In, I think.) the self-assessment forms. This, together with the other hours I have spent talking with priests and a diocesan employee, has convinced me that the commandment to describe me (and all other organists in the Diocese of Chichester) as employed by every church we play for, is based on a very one-sided opinion . There has been no change of interpretation by HMRC, no new guidelines. I spoke with the employee, who was unwilling to meet or change his mind without a decision in writing from HMRC, something I don't know how to achieve as HMRC only allows you to phone them, and it costs 12p a minute whilst you spend 3 minutes listening to their exhortations to "do it online" and 40 minutes waiting to speak to a real human. Not a postal address anywhere on their site. ...

I am just completely fed up with 1) Inland Revenue (as it used, in simpler days, to be known) and 2) the Diocese of Chichester for blindly following the stupid HMRC diktat which completely contradicts the church's earlier position - not contradicted by the revenue at the time - that organists were not employees and thus eminently sackable . And here . And here . Two churches have mentioned this to me, that I am to be treated as an employee. It would be financially doubleplusungood as my expenses would be slashed at a stroke and, much more importantly, my National Insurance Number, birth-date and everything necessary to commit mayhem and ID theft would be at the mercy of about 10 parish treasurers and their internet security. One treasurer-click on a phishing link, and there's my bank details gone. No. No, no and NO. One person mentioned that I would get a pension - well, no. I'd have to be paid £10,000 by each church to qualify for that, likewise sick pay. Even the ide...

A friend of mine chooses the ties he wears on Sundays by the liturgical colour of the day - predominantly green in the Sundays of Trinity, gold for Easter and Christmas, red for Martyrs - and, nowadays, Whitsunday - and so on. Whilst I have a large number of ties, they don't seem to have a predominating colour, being mostly musical notation or instruments (Christmasses became a little predictable a while back!). And then, about three years ago, I spotted a multi-pack of socks in Marks and Spencer and my problem was solved - liturgically appropriate socks. Unfortunately, the green pair has had rather more wear than the others and has gone into holes, so here is a tribute to the set before they start, one by one, to go through. I had thought to take pictures of them actually being worn, but it was an unusual day, quite summery and warm.

Danehill, Parish Church of All Saints'. Now, that's not something you might expect to find in a small parish church in the depths of East Sussex. Taken from the east the console is behind the red ochre doors. The manual compass is an octave short of normal (nipped off the top end) and the pedals only have two rather than two-and-a-half octaves. Despite this, it was pretty standard, the builder (in about 1892), Wordsworth of Leeds, aligned the pedalboard so that it is almost in the standard position. Because of the lack of depth in the loft it is impossible to get a view which shows both manuals and pedals. From the console you get a superb view of the reredos, a pretty stunning creation with more gold leaf. This was taken from just beside the priest's stall in the choirstalls, return stalls to save length. The service was BCP Mattins, straight from the book, with Ferial responses (accompanied), Venite and Jubilate to chants, and four traditional hymns. A ...

The week after Easter is often called "Low" Sunday. A sermon I heard once (in Parkend church) wondered if it referred to the number in the congregation, and surmised that those seen on Easter Day and then not again til Christmas were having Holy Car-munion (ouch) at home, washing their Fords and Vauxhalls. For those involved with Cantores Vagantes, it's the weekend jaunt to some cathedral or other to sing the weekend services. Some hundreds of miles and to the north-east of London is the town of St Edmundsbury, now usuallly referred to as Bury St Edmunds. I was last there in 2010 on my 51st birthday, which is another story altogether, and the cathedral had scaffolding up in the chancel whilst they installed the new Harrison & Harrison organ  (rather than pinch their excellent photo, I thought a link better). I didn't think then I would be playing it for three services. Whilst waiting for the choir to assemble, I took a quick pic of the east window from ...

It's not often I feel so dispirited I have no wish to play, but after Sunday's service I couldn't face even a run-through of some choral accompaniments coming up all too soon. I will leave the church unidentified. The Director of Music was off sick and the choir had been cancelled as no rehearsal could take place during the week. Two children and adults turned up. The person taking the service had a strong foreign accent, was wearing the microphone either some distance from his mouth or under some thick clothing, and the acoustics prevented me from understanding more than one word in 10. At zero notice it was suggested I play something during communion - fortunately I had brought a piece which I had prepared, in case - and the full music, harmonised edition of the service setting was only found for me on the day, not one which I knew. And the voluntary: it went ok until my great, flat, left foot plonked itself on bottom e on the last chord. The piece was, of course, dear ...

It would seem that I have started a race to summer. A church for whom I play asked me for dates up to June, and I thought they were getting well ahead and nicely organised. I looked in my diary and found that, between then and today, I have only four Sundays free. The same church has got back to me today, and asked for dates through to August! Now that is  organised - no pun intended. I do enjoy playing for different churches. For decades I was attached to one console or another, from my first job at St Peter's, Acton Green at age 14, to the last at St Bendybus, Hove. The variety of organs was huge: from 2-manuals and 10 stops (Peter Collins, 1974) to three and 70 stops (Noël Mander, 1964). They've been far too loud, too soft, on the west wall, buried in a chancel cavity, and, just occasionally, right. My favourite organ was St Augustine's, in Brighton. With three manuals, 42 stops it was certainly not small, but the sounds it produced belied the nameplate on it - Morga...

St John the Evangelist, Findon  Sunday, and playing at the charmingly (and inconveniently) sited parish church of Findon. Inconvenient because it is far out of the village, beyond the old manor house, across the A24 which can be busy. Charming because it sits between fields and a wood, nestling in a fold of the South Downs. I turned up to play their recently overhauled (and somewhat indifferent) organ, which is not a thing of beauty, hung high on the west wall, with the console en fenêtre to the clergy vestry in the south transept. I was looking forward to playing there, as I like the service, very simple setting and hymns, and there is a peace about the building which is rare, even in churches. At quarter past nine, then I had selected the music play before, during and after, bearing in mind it was Lent I, so switched on the blower. At which point, all electricity died. No lights, heat, anything. So I earned my fee by humming the first notes of the hymns and sett...

It was pointed out to me that the "comments" part of my blog on my site lacked an "approve" facility, that anyone could publish anything and it might be days before I noticed - since I don't update the site on a daily basis. I am truly grateful, Jenny :-) So, I've taken the old one down and started here (http://wandering-organist.blogspot.co.uk/) where there are different things to learn (and I haven't managed to work out the website controls yet) and sprain my brain on. Bear with me as I learn, please.