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Not just a pipe dream

17/12/2001

THE SOUNDS of yesteryear will come back to life thanks to a unique museum now being organ-ised in Eccles.

Decades before hi-tech soundtracks were blasted into cinemas, filmgoers were kept entertained by the shrill tones of the Wurlitzer organ.

But now, plans are in the pipeline to recreate the past by taking one of the ancient machines, which once kept punters happy at Liverpool's Trocadero Cinema, and restoring it to its former glory.

In one of the first schemes of its kind, members of the Lancastrian Theatre Organ Trust will set it up in the former Sunday school annex by Patricroft Methodist Church.

They plan to show old silent movies, with an organist recreating the atmosphere by providing an authentic soundtrack.

There will also be talks about the machine's history, organ recitals, while musicians and youngsters from Salford schools will be invited in to tickle the ivories.

Meanwhile, enthusiasts will be able to see the organ's workings in the basement, which will also contain relics about the Wurlitzer's inventor Robert Hope-Jones, who hailed from North Wales and whose brother Frank invented the electric clock and was a friend of Einstein's.

Members of the trust, originally set up in 1968 to rescue the Wurlitzer from Manchester's Odeon cinema, are over the first hurdle after last week being given planning permission to convert the building.

However, they are now applying for cash to bring their pipe-dream to life and transport the Liverpool organ - now in two parts in Stockport and Buxton - to Salford.

The group's chairman Don Hyde told us: "The last one of these organs was made in 1939 and if people like us don't rescue them then it'll be a thing that you'll read about in books.

"We want to recreate the atmosphere of the old cinemas. They've tried this in America and it's really taken off."