Alexandra Palace Organ
London N22 4AY
The unofficial website
Correspondence
The opinions expressed in these letters are those of the writers and not necessarily those off the webmasters. The webmasters are happy to receive and publish letters from interested parties. However, they will not enter into any “Good Guy Bad Guy” correspondence. The documents on the web site speak for themselves.
My attention has been drawn to a discussion of the Alexandra Palace organ started
by Alan Taylor on the Mander Organs web site on-
Until now I had no idea that this correspondence between different persons was going on, but having read it I am quite frankly disgusted with the answer from Mr S Walmsley.
Firstly I will introduce myself. I was one of the ousted members, and whilst serving on the Appeal Committee officially for 7 years I was at various times Treasurer, Friends' Secretary, and finally, Concert Organiser. I also bought cds which I sold at concerts, and credited the total profit to the Organ Appeal.
Incidentally Mr Walmsley states that the unfitted organ pipes are owned by the Appeal. I dispute that. One of my first jobs as Treasurer was to claim a large sum of money from the Inland Revenue. This helped to buy the pipes from Henry Willis and Sons, and it was agreed on my recommendation by the Appeal that these pipes be donated to the AP trustees. I have a copy of the letter I wrote to MY successor, as treasurer, stating this fact.
Let me now turn to our Mr Walsmsley, who was for a time minute secretary, and I can tell you that thanks to him, a few committee meetings had no minutes produced, because he either forgot to do them, didn't have time to do them, or they were lost in his computer. In the end he was replaced, but he wasn't sacked as I was. You can understand how, in times like this, it is so important to have accurate minutes of meetings.
Is this the same Mr Walsmsley who used the Appeal's money to hire a van and pick up supposedly ex Alexandra Palace pipes from John Sinclair Willis? Subsequently Mr Wyld, the MD of Henry Willis and Sons stated that they were not Alexandra Palace pipes. The last time I saw them, these pipes were gathering dust on the floor of the organ gallery some years later.
The letter from the Appeal's Secretary, Mr P Smith, a solicitor, informed me that I was sacked because of contact with third parties. As you will realise, as concert organiser I had to make contact with professional well known recitalists, to produce a varied selection of players, as otherwise our audiences would soon tire from continually listening to the Palace organist.
As far as I can make out, the true reason I was sacked was because I was insisting that the Appeal would never raise the large sum of money required to complete the organ without a tendering process, and as you can see from the unofficial website the current members of the Appeal committee will NOT have that.
When Alan and his "accomplices" gain control of the Appeal, I look forward to Mander's, together with other reputable organ builders, being given the opportunity to tender for the project of completing the restoration of the Alexandra Palace organ.
Colin Richell
Some time ago Felix Aprahamian passed to me some water damaged organ stuff, and you will appreciate that it is very difficult to read it, and I am also looking through other correspondence as time permits.
Just one point. The APOA in their web site state that the organ could be completed for £600,000.
I have in front of me a letter sent in 1987 and signed by no less than Yehudi Menuhin and Sir Hugh Casson which was sent to potential donors, and states amongst other things :
"The Great Willis masterpiece which has lain neglected since 1944, requires three craftsman years to repair, at a cost of nearly 1 million pounds.
A letter from Fred Clarke to the Charity Commission dated 10th November 1987 states that the financial target is to reach a million pounds.
These people are far from being idiots, so how is it that the cost 18 years later, with the deterioration which must have occurred, is reduced to £600,000. What standard of work would be carried out ?
Colin Richell
