You will hear and be able to play the 3-manual, 72-speaking-stop Compton organ in St George’s Cathedral, hosted by Norman Harper, former Director of Music. Norman will play a short recital, including some of Messiaen’s Nativité du Seigneur, which he used to play in its entirety each year until he retired in 2017. Members will then be free to play the instrument up until c4.00, possibly beyond.

The SSLSO repertoire meeting took place at Nicky Jones’ home on Saturday 4^th November at 2.30 pm. The focus was on organ music for the Advent and Christmas periods. Present were Norman and Marilyn Harper, Alan Langridge, Andrew Chadney, Irene Wolstenholme, Norman Flower, Nicky Jones and Clare Perkins from the South London Music Shop.

Our second Summer Social was held at St Giles Church, Camberwell, in the afternoon of Sunday the 7^th August. St Giles has a very attractive garden area behind the church which works very well, and even better, a well established nightclub area in the basement of the church meaning an easy supply of cold drinks, and, as it happened, a convenient refuge should the rain actually appear.

The weather forecast for several weeks before had been remarkably consistent, with sunshine predicted for most of the day but with the possibility of some rain later in the day. As it happened, it started raining at the beginning of the event so the early arrivals started in the bar area and very pleasant it was too. But the rain was only to last a short while before the sun burst out and we all 15 of us went out in the garden.

Ashley Valentine was on the SSLSO committee at the time the idea was raised of having a summer social, and originally suggested the church as a place to hold the Social because of the advantage of there being, in effect, a pub in the basement. He is the organist there and gave a short organ recital at the end to round it all off. He chose two pieces written by Samuel Wesley –  Andante in F and Choral Song and Fugue – who was the organist at St Giles’ in the middle 1800s and (as Ashley said) he may well have played them on that very same organ: maybe his ghost was dancing with us (not that any of us were actually dancing!)

It was a great time and hopefully we can look forward to it again next summer, and maybe we could do actual dancing!!!

Martin Callingham

Nov 4th, 2023, 2:30pm – An afternoon playing and discussing Christmas Repertoire, at the home of our member, Nicky Jones, in Forest Hill, SE23. Please bring a piece of Christmas music that you play, ideally one less well known. Please contact the secretary, Andrew Chadney ([email protected]), for directions.

We have arranged a ‘Social’ at the Crypt under St Giles’ Church, Camberwell, for Sunday 6th August 2.30pm – 5pm. This is a beautiful Gilbert Scott Gothic Revival church from the mid-eighteen hundreds.

After a quick change of plan, wished on us by the train strike, John Webber and Alan Langridge saved the day by driving five of us to Whitstable on Saturday 13^th May for a visit to three quite differing churches, kindly organised by Michael Cooke.