This wonderfully detailed account of the organ at Parkend (St Paul's) church was written by a young Alan Baker for the Bream Secondary School 1961/2 magazine.

THE NEW ORGAN AT ST. PAUL'S CHURCH, PARKEND
Organ building is quite good fun but I think it is even more exciting to dismantle an old organ. Last Whitsun we pulled the old organ in Parkend Church to pieces. It was very dirty because it had been up for a very long time and the pipes had to be cleaned and sorted out. Organ pipes vary from six inches to sixteen feet in length and the longer the pipe the lower the sound it makes. Pipes are put into different groups. Some are members of the reed family, such as the tuba, clarinet and oboe, others are of the diapason family which makes the church-organ-like sounds. Rows of pipes are called ranks. Each organ key has a pipe and in our organ are twelve hundred pipes. The keys are arranged in manuals and the Parkend new organ has three of these. Their names are:- The Swell Organ. The Great Organ. The Choir Organ. An organist uses his feet on the organ's pedal board. There are stops which enable him to use different ranks of pipes and the organ is controlled from the console which is detached from the main part of the instrument. The organ is connected to the console by electric cables each containing sixty-one wires. Cables leading from the organ loft to the belfry are joined to big switch boards. Thousands of wires had to be soldered together which meant a good deal of work. The organ does not need the full voltage of the electricity supply and so a rectifier has to be used; this is kept in the belfry because it is noisy when working. Air blowing through an organ pipe makes it "speak" and to make the air an electric blower is used. All the parts of the organ except the Diapason Chorus and the blower have to be kept in a sound-proof box with shutters on the front which can be opened or closed, making the organ play loudly or softly. In the new Parkend organ are parts from three other organs. Some from a theatre organ, some of the old organ and some from the organ in another church. The work of rebuilding has been done by members of the church advised and helped by an organ builder. Some months ago the organ was Shown on Television. Before long the instrument will be finished and it is then to be dedicated to the memory of Miss E. Wright who once taught at Bream secondary Modern School and was also Deputy Organist of Parkend Church.
A. BAKER, 4B