Dan Jackson: Soul music in the church of life

Dan Jackson

WHEN I first moved up Durie Hill, I got a hang of a surprise when the bells of St Barnabas' Church rang out.

It penetrated through my hungover slumber like nobody's business.

I'd never lived within earshot of church bells before and, in my Sunday morning stupor, it took me a while to come to grips with the idea of people actively getting together so early on what was then my only day off for the week.

However, I'm not one to complain about such things and within a very short time I came to like the sounds of the bells and chit chat as people followed their weekly ritual of worship.

I'm not religious, and I certainly don't like being preached to, but I would never dream of casting scorn on those who are, nor try to stop them as long as they extend me the same courtesy.

When I had a ride-on lawnmower I used to pop around the 'hood, bourbon can in hand, and mow the church lawns now and then. I did it for a bit of a laugh and to help out -- I don't know if they ever noticed, and I didn't do it for thanks, but it felt good to do something, albeit small, for the community.

I've been on the hill over a decade now (which still doesn't entirely make me a Durie Hillian) and it was with some dismay I realised the church bells had fallen silent. I don't know if it was because someone had complained of the noise or because no one was willing to ring the bell, but it seemed sad to me that a regular feature of the 'hood was gone.

More recently, regular services at the church have stopped and then, the other night, I was rung by my missus to say there was a garage sale on and there was an electric organ for sale.

I was still at work, but there was no hiding the excitement in her voice as she told me that we could own it for a modest sum -- all we had to do was get it home.

Oh ... and we had to have it out by 7pm for some reason.

I raced home to find the missus waiting for me in a state of high anticipation.

We went down the road to the church and paid for St Barnabas' organ which, to my dismay, was much more substantial than I imagined such a keyboard to be.

It's a substantial piece of wooden joinery, with minimal bits of plastic, dating from a time when things were still made well.

So, armed with the church's sack barrow and a cloth to protect the organ from the rain, the wife and I, with help from a man named Mike, set about wheeling the organ down the road.

It was a perilous operation in the wet as it tried to slip off the barrow on the footpath or get stuck in the sodden lawn but we eventually got it home.

We enlisted the help of the teenager and between the four of us got this now seemingly monstrous piece of furniture/musical instrument into the house and into a spot in the lounge the missus had somehow pre-cleared in the five minutes between ringing me and going to pick the thing up.

We plugged it in and the kids all had a go at plinking on it. It has a regular piano sound but also guitar, opera and drums as well as some others.

We've nicknamed it "Morgan" -- that's right, Morgan the Organ -- and it has quickly become a loved feature of our household.

In fact, in this age of the internet and PlayStations, it's refreshing to see that we have had to get a bit of of turn-about system going so the kids don't scrap over playing on Morgan.

So far we've had Chopsticks, some song off Shrek, and I've been coercing the 11-year-old to play Smoke On The Water.

When I went to work that morning, I had no idea we needed an organ, but now it's hard to think of being without it.

I don't know how many people Morgan's helped hatch, match and dispatch over the years, but it's nice to know that while the bells of St Barnabas may have fallen silent, this little piece of Durie Hill history has found a home with us.

Dan Jackson is a Whanganui journalist and part-time scrap metal dealer.