In March 2021 Damon Cox & Nigel Laflin descended on Folkestone, on the invitation of Rickys son Brian, to survey the organ with a view to helping find a new home for the instrument. Following the survey Damon (possibly in a moment of madness!?) agreed to take ownership of the organ. This meant removal, restoration and re-installation in another suitable venue.

Given the fact the organ wasn’t one complete original instrument, I decided to try and make it more authentic in its tonal resources. So I kept the two Savoy Standaart Ranks, and re-homed the rest of the pipework while I looked for suitable ranks.

With space at a premium, I decided to keep the bass electric as it had been all those years at the Harts, but with sounds produced by modern Digital Samples.

With some luck one of the first big parts I found was the Main chest from the Commodore Hammersmith. I also acquired a pair of Christie Violins (from the Elephant and Castle Theatre), a Hill Norman & Beard Hohl Flute (from the Duke Street Baptist Church, Kingston-Upon-Thames), a Wurlitzer Vox Humana (imported in from the USA in the 80s), and an excellent, if not usual, Trumpet rank from the only cinema organ the Italian firm Barbieri (Regent Leamington Spa) imported to the UK.

The Nederlandse Orgel Federatie (NOF) kindly donated a genuine surplus Standaart console which came from the Stadsschouwburg Tilburg as well as a set of shutters and chimes from the same organ. Carl Heslop was commissioned to make new stop tabs copying the unique hand engraved style used on the VARA Studio

With the restoration of the chests, regulators etc. complete, the organ was playable for the first time

I thought it was okay to start with, but the strings and flute weren’t quite what I was looking for. The final addition was quite something, by way of the Commodore Hammersmith Tuba, This meant completely rebuilding half the organ to fit it in on a Wurlitzer Chest. This work combined with swapping the Christie flute and strings ranks for Wurlitzer ones (Strings from the West end Birmingham, flute unknown) has resulted in the instrument you hear today.

Contact damon@studio-standaart.co.uk for private practice or visits – for concerts and tickets http://studio-standaart.co.uk/