Floods drown voice which serenaded generations (1970)

Water swept into the ABC Cinema in Fisherwick Place and destroyed beyond repair the mighty organ which has serenaded generations of Ulster cinema-goers and which filled the national radio network with more than 1,000 hours of music.

The last man to play the Ritz organ as a full-time professional is Stanley Wyllie from Lisburn.

He told the News Letter in September 1970: “It is so very sad. In fact it is the end of an era. That instrument was one of the best in Britain and it was definitely the last in Northern Ireland, if not in the whole of Ireland. As far as I know, the only cinema organ left in working order is in Cork.”

Mr Don Mackrell, general manager of ABC Cinemas in Northern Ireland, was an organ-music fan. “I am distressed by the ruin of our magnificent music machine,” he told the News Letter. “We had been keeping it in good condition for some years, even though it was played infrequently and never, alas, at public performances. It was a wonderful instrument, one of the best in the British Isles.”

Never again would the extraordinary sounds the big Compton organ could produce would be heard, the News Letter lamented. Cymbals, castanets, snare-drums, tambourine; the tuba, mellifluous strings, the glockenspiel and such off-beat side-effects as bird-song, a steam-boat whistle, a firebell and a klaxon would never sound again from the organ.

Swamped by rain-water - which on August 15, 1970, reached a depth of eight feet in the chambers which held the works of the instrument - were the four keyboards, the 29 footpedals which produced a range of sound comparable to a full symphony orchestra.

Gone forever was the magic moment when the organ, its glass console aglow with coloured lights, rose slowly from its pit to entertain the audience between films. Gone were the slides which projected on the screen the words of the songs the organist played, inviting the audience to “singalong”.

Gone, too, were those radio broadcasts: “This is Joseph Seal at the organ of the Ritz Cinema. Belfast” and then latterly “This is Stanley Wyllie bringing some of your favourite music . . . from Belfast.”

The News Letter correspondent reflected that “to be quite honest”, all those things had disappeared some years before the floods arrived. The cinema organ recital, the singalong and the slides had died, killed by changing fashions in music, and changing tastes among cinema audiences.

Stanley Wyllie, who had been resident organist at the Ritz for eight years, said: “The heyday of the theatre organ covered two decades, the Thirties and the Forties. With the arrival of rock ‘n’ roll, the attraction began to die. Then television came along and the patterns began to change even more radically.

“The audiences were younger, they liked a brand of music which it was virtually impossible to produce on an organ. They didn’t care to join in singing old favourites and they couldn’t care less about ‘requests’ for Auntie Annie and all the family.”

In 1970 Stanley Wyllie was a transmission controller at Ulster Television. He still “plays” a console, noted the News Letter, but it had no keyboard, “just rows of switches to link, second by second, the pictures you see on your screen”.

“I saw the writing on the cinema wall in 1959,” he said. “When I was demobbed from the RAF there were more than 200 full time theatre organists in the UK, some of them, like Joe Seal, Reginald Fort and Reg Dixon, household names.

“In 1959, what with the onslaught of the new pop music, there were only seven left, of whom I was one.

“So I resigned and took up a new career. I was sorry to leave. The Ritz and its organ was rated very highly in the British Isles and the company were so good that I might have gone on for a few more years. But I realised I was in a dying profession. So I left.”

Since Wyllie resigned, the cinema had had no staff organist and the “mighty machine” was played only for rare TV and radio shows, sometimes by Wyllie himself.

When it was installed in 1936, the Ritz organ cost £10,000. On the opening night it was played by Harold Ramsay, who accompanied Gracie Fields on it. Ramsay stayed on as staff organist for a year and then Joseph Seal arrived.

He stayed until 1951. During the years, through innumerable national broadcasts he became something of a celebrity, playing Forces’ requests right through the Second World War.

Meanwhile Stanley - who left school, against parental wishes, to become a theatre organist - joined the RAF and eventually became resident organist and pianist for the British Forces’ Network in Hamburg, doing his own shows and accompanying such artists as Geraint Evans, the opera singer.

When the war ended, Stanley returned to his job at the console of the Regal, Torquay, and then, when Joseph Seal left Belfast to become an executive for the group which owned the ABC, he took over as resident performer on the big Compton.

“Those were, wonderful days. Belfast audiences were marvellous, especially on request nights. I would get letters from all over the world - from America and Canada, even once from Montevideo - asking me to play a particular number. I would then write to the person for whom the request was intended and invite them to come to the cinema.

“Then we had the real organ fans. They used to come and sit in the front stalls just to watch and hear. I don’t think they cared which film was showing, they just liked theatre organ music. Some of them still send me Christmas cards even after all these years.”

All the curious effects which the Ritz organ could produce were not electronic imitations, noted the News Letter, “when the organist switched to castanets, they were actual castanets, mechanically manipulated. The drum rolls were played on real drums deep in the complex guts of the music machine”.

Wyllie continued: “We had, too, a wonderful effect called the Melotone, which gave a strange ethereal effect to the music. And, of course, we had the ghostly piano.

“This was a real piano which stood on the stage. With a spotlight on it the audience could see its keys being played, though no one was near it.

“There was a complicated system of wires and rubber suction pads connected to the organ console. I played the tune from the pit and the piano picked it up by remote control. It was a gimmick - but it was fun.”

Only three cinemas in Northern Ireland had organs. The old Classic had one for a number of years. When the cinema was demolished a company bought the organ and installed parts of it in a several church organs.

The Tonic - “now the Odeon” - in Bangor had an organ which had been played by Louis Macdonald for several years. But it had been bought by a local schoolteacher called Mr Rodney Bambrick who was an organ enthusiast.

The News Letter correspondent concluded: “Now that the floods have destroyed the Ritz organ, the era of live music between films has ended. Ketelby’s ‘In a Monastery Garden’ will be heard no more in the back circle. No one ever again will clap his hands in the chorus of ‘Deep In The Heart Of Texas’. It is sad - but inevitable.”