Blood on the console

In August I was invited to play for Sunday and week-day services on the mighty four-manual Harrison organ in Winchester Cathedral, for the Cranmer Company of Singers directed by Deborah Davies. Those readers who know this building will remember that the organ pipes are on the north side of the Quire, but where could the console be, we wondered? As Mary, my invaluable page-turner, and I mounted the seemingly endless flight of steps on the south side of the Quire, having been told where the console was, I began to wonder if I had been wise to accept the invitation to play, since I have not a good head for heights and Mary is more prone to vertigo than I am.

After we had gingerly crept along a narrow gallery at triforium level, inches away from a very frail-looking wooden screen of decorative pinnacles and one thin iron bar, Mary was glad to sit down on a chair beside the console and I sat on the organ bench, with my back only a foot or two from the screen, to gain familiarity with the specification. At any rate, we had found the console. Neither of us dared look down then, but after I had played for a service or two, we did so. Waves of vertigo engulfed us and I felt as I always do on such occasions, inexplicably, a strong desire to hurl myself in to the abyss far, far below. Mary turned pale, but remained fairly composed and I resisted yet again the feeling of self-destruction.

Winchester was in the grip of a fierce heat-wave and during every rehearsal and service, I was bathed in perspiration, including my fingers. It was however not until my concluding voluntary after Sunday Matins, that I gradually became aware that the keys were more moist than hitherto. When I had a second to spare from my performance, I looked down and saw to my horror that the keys had turned red - my life’s blood was dripping away on the organ console. It seems that as I snatched the hymn-book from the music rest preparatory to playing my final voluntary, I had hit, unknowingly, a particularly vicious metal lamp-shade at the side of the console, and this had done the damage to my hand.

Mary, equal as always to any emergency, mopped up the keys I did not happen to be using at the time, and moved from keyboard to keyboard following my hands so that at least I could continue playing. With her deftness and my determination the music moved forward without a break and with total accuracy to the composer’s intentions. When I had finished I took out my handkerchief - we had to clean up the organ for the next service - while Mary bravely descended all those steps to find a damp cloth. One of the clergy thought "there might be a tap in the Verger’s vestry" - there certainly was not, but one of the Vergers (that’s how they spell the word in Winchester) gave her some tissues for the console and some sticking plaster for my wound.

In sixty years of organ-playing I have never experienced this hazard - but when I play a weekend of services in Southwell Minster later this month, a week of services in Gloucester Cathedral in September and a service in Chester Cathedral in December, I shall pack a first-aid kit as well as my music!

Kendrick Partington

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