A gift from the late Frederick George Munday

(This instrument is no longer available!)

Some weeks ago now we were contacted by Nikki Pelmear to ask if we could help her fulfil her late father’s wishes for his Norwich Organ and music collection to find its way to a place of worship school or college. She had contacted us because of our quite well publicised organ outreach activities.

Eager to help we collected the 2 manual moving drawstop instrument in the first week of December and are happy to report it is in full working order. It appears to be quite a late Norwich instrument in a light oak real wood console. If it has any drawback the keys are rather light weight but typical of those in electronic organs of the late 80’s and early 90’s.

The music collection will require deeper cataloguing so we will blog about that early next year.

Organist Frederick George Munday

Frederick George Munday 1931 – 2021 had been an organist for about 70 of his 90 years

So an organist for most of his life after gaining Grade 8 in organ playing and Grade 8 in theory he began playing at his childhood church in Carshalton. As a young man with family he became the organist of St Leonards church in Over Whitacre.

When he retired early he wanted to concentrate on it a bit more so he became organist of St Giles, West Bridgford, 10 miles from Bingham. He felt he needed to be able to practise at home so, in the late 1980s, he invested in the most up to date organ of the time supplied by Norwich Organs.

In addition to St Giles, Fred took on many local churches including some in Leicestershire and Lincolnshire, and this entailed many weddings therefore the organ was invaluable to practise, especially when he led the choir. He also used it for pleasure and challenged himself to learn new pieces. Even when he became quite ill in his later years he tried to play the organ several times a week which was very therapeutic for him.

A generous gift to the most deserving beneficiary

The instrument is pictured below and will be made available to the most deserving beneficiary that we feel best fits with Frederick’s wishes for its future.

To be considered for this most generous gift please email us at enquiries@viscountorgans.net with a few words telling us how you will put the instrument to use or why you should be considered as its new owner and we will quickly decide on the home with a view to delivering it before Christmas.

The instrument is 27.5  inches deep , 62 inches wide and 51 inches tall.  The depth including the pedal board is 46 inches.

This spirit amongst organists to share their love of the instrument and its music is not at all unusual and I am sure Fred and his family will be delighted when the next home for his much loved and played instrument is found.