The organ of Holy Trinity Church

Reginald Foort.

As far as I can gather Holy Trinity Church has had an organ to provide music for the Sunday services. In the early 1900’s it was powered a young boy, usually a choirboy whose voice had broken and was not required by the vicar as a server for that service. His job was to on the nod of the organist/choirmaster start to pump the bellows with a large pole handle and keep up a steady rhythm for the whole of the hymn or psalm. This was one job that fell to my father for a year or so, before he was involved with his profession.

In the middle 1930’s things were happening in the village. Black Butts Cottages were built. The Pinder Hall was built and opened in 1936. Also in 1936-37 the church became the owners of a new electric driven bellows organ. This was of course a very big occasion, and for the dedication it required a very special organist, one who had become well known over the radio with the BBC. Reginald Foort was that man and his repertoire of Church music was quite extensive, though he made his name by playing theatre organs in the cinemas. The church was packed for that occasion.

There was one problem with the organ though, and that was the electric motor. On Sunday evenings it caused interference with Sir Algernon Guinness’s new Television, the first in the village, on a Sunday evenings during the service. As broadcasts from the Alexandra Palace were only from six until nine in the evening. Not to put the church to anymore expense, Sir Algernon ordered, and had an electrical suppressor fitted to the organ motor.

Since that time the organ has served the church well, with a couple of major overhauls, and relocation to its present position, it has served the church and village well.