Procol Harum, Van der Graff Generator? Brian Auger & Oblivion Express? Colosseum? Edgar Broughton Band? Who else played in Southend?…
We never speak to Bob about his organ playing. I wonder whether we think of it as music at all? We are so used to a particular sound that comes out of the neighbour’s house that we regard it as something that just happens. Bob normally plays the organ early evenings and it always sounds the same. It always sounds like some kind of mournful snoring, a lilting dirge. Perhaps he is improvising, perhaps that is the only tune he knows? We never ask him about it, we never ask him if he was a famous musician or whether he plays the organ at his local church. We think he probably takes it quite seriously. After all, it was a big thing to have built into your sitting room. It is as imposing as a hefty piece of furniture filling the alcove with pipes, nobs and ornamental scrolls of dark, polished wood. Perhaps we do not have the language or confidence to ask Bob anything about it?
Bob, on the other hand is always willing to give unasked for advice about gardening. If he sees me with a hoe or a fork in-hand he appears from nowhere, tweed and leather elbow on the fence pointing and directing me on the “right way” to do things. His own garden is extremely neat with a fitted carpet of a lawn and geometrically cut flower beds boasting uniformly pruned rose bushes. The shed at the end of his garden is a World War 2, Anderson bomb shelter where he safely stores the sacred, polished, bright green lawnmower poised for manoeuvres on Sundays. I think his horticultural advice is delivered in the hopes that one day we will also learn the values of a neat garden for him to gaze upon from his net curtained lookout post.
The other inhabitants of the house are, wife Dotty, grownup, adopted daughter Lily and a very placid golden retriever called Quinn. The only time they ever seem to leave the house is to go to church on Sundays. Mum says that Dotty is an “indoors sort of person,” because, “…she is frightened to catch a cold.” She has very big hair, a kind of frizzy grey pompom or cloud on top of her head. Lilly wears billowing cotton frocks sporting picture book, floral patterns. She also has a frock for church fete days depicting a procession of pineapples and silhouetted dancing ladies. Before the fete she makes brightly painted, wooden models of fairground swing boats which she sells at a stall.
As children we are occasionally invited or summoned to visit Dottie. We rather dread this as we really do not know what to say to her. What do you ask someone who never goes out? You can’t even talk about the weather! These visits are a kind of dutiful ritual. We don’t have much of a conversation and seem to slip into a polite trance. At last Dottie signals the conclusion of the visit by taking down from the mantlepiece a big ornamental drinking tankard. As she picks it up a musical box hidden inside it plays the tune to “Widdecombe Fair” with “… Uncle Tom Cobley and all…” We smile to make it look as if we are surprised. After enduring this ‘delight” she will then present us with a cellophane packet of iced gems. They present themselves as a something special out of a fairy tale if you can find magic in a slightly stale, miniscule biscuit topped with a spiral of pink, blue or green tooth-grinding, icing. We don’t really like those iced gems but we don’t dislike them, they are the kind of thing that you eat because they are there and we accept it as that. Just like Bob’s organ playing.
Perhaps Bob’s uninvited and unfathomable magic organ playing led to my eventual interest in prog rock, experimental sounds and teenage awe at local gigs to see Procol Harum, Van der Graff Generator, Brian Auger & Oblivion Express, Colosseum and the Edgar Broughton Band? Thanks Bob, would you like an iced gem?
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Simon Persighetti 2026
BOB’S MAGIC ORGAN is an extract from 20th Century Essex Boy – a rollercoaster ride through the 20th Century’s most significant cultural and political movements in Britain and beyond, from pirate radio and hippy counterculture, to feminism, to punk to the miners’ strike, anti-apartheid and avant-garde theatre.
Currently in development, this project by Simon Persighetti and Small Acts explores how our early experiences of place can influence the direction of our lives.
To find out more: www.small-acts.co.uk
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