Pumping the Church Organ

Jessie Lintern was the daughter of a United Free Church minister in Scotland, in the 1930’s she was bought up to go to church and her brother was given an important task for some reward.

"At Colmonell, my brother was given the task of pumping the organ, for which he received a copper or two and a bag of sweets from the organist, who kept a post office and grocery store three miles away. He was hidden from view by a curtain which shut off the stairs to the pulpit, and there he settled down with his ‘Wizard’ or ‘Hotspur’ as his father began the sermon.

One memorable Sunday he was so engrossed in the doings of Roy of the Rovers that, oblivious of the sermon’s end and the announcement of the final hymn, and that the organist was sitting with hands poised above the keyboard, he failed to put the pump into operation. Silence reigned, until the organist hissed loudly, “Blow, Jimmy, blow.” The bag of sweets rolled under the curtain, my father glared down at his son, and with a mighty surge of air the organ sounded forth! "