It was all hands to the pumps when parishioners arrived at church in the village of Bolton-on-Swale in North Yorkshire to discover there was no electricity.
A power cut at St Mary’s Church meant not only no lighting but the prospect of no musical accompaniment to the hymns. That is until vicar, the Revd Yvonne Callaghan, realised that the old 19th century organ bellows could still be pumped by hand as they did in 1877 when the Gray and Davidson organ was built and installed.
Younger members of the village congregation were asked if they could help pump and three children volunteered to help out.
Pictured above are Neil Callaghan (back left) and organist Myles Camm (right) with the children who helped to keep the music going.
One of the children pressed into service, Kitty, commented “The organ has a big bag of air inside which makes the tune. Myles the organ player had to play on a higher key because the lower key uses more air out of the bag.
“Me and Ed started but we got tired very quickly so Neil (Callaghan) had to take over - he made it look very easy. We learnt that in the olden times you wouldn't have any electricity so every Sunday people would have to pump the organ, so we are very lucky that we have electricity to do it for us.”
The team pumped the bellows through four hymns including 'Lord of The Dance' which has seven verses. "We did give them a break for the Gloria, which we sang unaccompanied." said vicar, Yvonne.
Neil Callaghan who supervised the pumping said, “Whilst I understand that it is the duty of every Christian to make a joyous noise to the Lord, I never imagined that would mean pumping the organ in church!
“It is exhausting and as someone without a great sense of rhythm was rather hard to co-ordinate. The children and I were exhausted, but the worship was wonderful … I wonder if we should disconnect the organ from the power supply regularly so the congregation could get fitter!”
Yvonne added, “We would have had such a different service had the organ not been able to be played, so thank you to the children, Myles and to Neil, you made such a difference to our worship.”
