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Many churches possess articles of much value and historic interest.  Our church is no exception.  One of these items, often taken for granted, is our Organ.  This was built in 1897 by a leading and well respected Victorian organ builder – J.W.Walker -  who built many organs, large and small, for churches in this country and abroad.  They were well designed and constructed and built using first class materials.  Our organ, now regarded by many as a fine example of a small church instrument, is well suited to the size of the church  and its musical requirements.  However, though it had been looked after, the time had come when a major reconstruction became necessary. The action had become sluggish, some pipes did not function well or not at all, parts had broken, the blower was not working efficiently, so starving the organ of sufficient wind, air was escaping from numerous parts of the instrument and its whole performance had become sub-standard. Damp had got in and affected glued parts and distorted some wooden parts, metal parts had rusted and some had broken and bats had left their mark in discolouring the pipes. The organ had reached the stage whereby it needed to be stripped down and every part examined, cleaned, repair or renewed as necessary.  

A major part of the restoration concerned the re-leathering of the bellows to provide sufficient air

pressure for the proper performance of the organ. Metal parts were cleaned or renewed as necessary.  The woodwork was treated for woodworm. The electrical wiring was old, very much sub-standard and has been renewed. The mechanism was taken apart, fully refurbished and regulated to give good reliable performance and every pipe, all 760 of them, was individually examined, cleaned, dents knocked out and re-voiced to produce the much open sound we now hear. These pipes now respond as they should do, so making the organ sound much brighter and produce much more variety of sound than we had before.

And so we now have an organ which is valued as an historic instrument. But it is also ready to meet the musical demands of the church. It produces plenty of sound for congregational singing, it can play very quietly to accompany the choir or soloists and can play music by the great composers such as J.S.Bach and others. What is so important is that besides being of historic interest, it is a practical instrument meant to be played, to accompany singing, and to be listened to.  It is to be enjoyed and not to be an exhibit hidden behind a glass screen in a museum.  Look after it and it will give many more years of loyal service to the church.  

David Wells.

I have to walk the dog twice a day.  Well, I suppose I don't have to but Blackie sort of expects it.  So we go out first thing in the morning around the village for about 20 minutes and then after lunch we generally take off along the Brington Road.  Sometimes we cut across the fields but more often than not the dog and I mooch along for about 20 minutes before turning around and coming back home.

And because there isn't a huge amount of conversation between the dog and I (other than "Blackie!!! . come on" or "you've already sniffed that bush three times, you really don't need to go back to it again"), I tend to use the dog walking time as thinking time.  Especially the afternoon walk since once we clear the houses I don't often meet anyone else.

So the other afternoon, the dog and I were wandering along, and I was struggling with an idea for the first part of the service.  Sometimes        

ideas just come and sometimes they don't and this was a "don't " situation.  Anyway, I was playing with some thoughts and gradually an idea began to take shape.  So I mentally worked on it a bit more, fleshing out my initial thoughts until I had pretty much decided how it would come together and fit neatly in with the sermon.

I was so deep in thought that I hadn't realised just how far we had walked and was suddenly jolted back to the reality that Blackie and I had wandered much further along the lane than we had ever done before.   Not only had we discovered pastures new, but the view was amazing and well worth the extra walk home.

God has a habit of wanting to take us to places that we haven't been.  That can be scary but the view – what He shows us when we get there – can be truly amazing and well worth the hard work.