Hargraves’ mission no pipe dream

He is a pipe organ playing maestro and knows a thing or two about restoring them. And John Hargraves, of Timaru’s South Island Organ Company, says it has been his life mission to protect the skill involved in his restoration work, as reporter Yashas Srini

While the scale of his industry is reducing, John Hargraves says pipe organs are a work of art that ‘‘will never completely disappear’’.

And he should know.

‘‘It’s been my life mission to restore pipe organs. I decided when I was 18 that this is what I wanted to do in life. I didn’t know what was going to happen,’’ Hargraves, of Timaru, said.

In 2010, Hargraves was named a member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for services to organ restoration.

After 55 years restoring the massive musical instruments, Hargraves said business has picked up again following Covid-19 lockdowns with churches opening up again and members starting to play organs after two years, and encountering some issues ..

Born in Auckland, Hargraves, 79, joined the South Island Organ Company in Washdyke as an apprentice in 1968.

He is now its managing director with seven full time organ builders, three office staff and other part-time workers restoring pipe organs from around New Zealand and three states in Australia.

‘‘I joined in the first few months the South Island Organ Company existed, as an apprentice. Now being the managing director, I’m still passionate about pipe organs.’’

An organist himself, Hargraves said restoring pipe organs was ‘‘not an easy way of life but a satisfying one’’.

‘‘Organs will be around long after I’m in the ground still bringing pleasure to people who listen to them.’’

He says the industry was not spared by the pandemic over the past two years as the company struggles to complete work on projects.

‘‘We haven’t always been busy. ‘‘The first lockdown was really frustrating for us as it caught us after we had completed a big project, and we were about to dismantle another organ, but we had to go home and sit it out. It’s a situation shared by many others.

‘‘Quite a few of our supplies have to be imported from overseas, and we have had to order items a long way ahead.

‘‘We were more fortunate in the other lockdowns as we could work in the workshop again.’’

Another thing that frustrates the company has been coordinating with building contractors working on earthquake strengthening a building with an organ in it and the delays the builders face themselves, he said.

‘‘The difficulty is that our work is not compatible with sites that are building sites. The organs are sensitive to dust and dirt.

‘‘It needs to be quiet when we’re working on an organ and the jack hammers outside don’t help.’’

He says reinstalling organs in a building is another challenge as they need to wait for the construction to finish, causing further delays to the other work they have on hand.

‘‘We now have four projects held up because of constructions,’’ he said.

The virus itself had also hit the Washdyke workshop, he said.

‘‘I’ve had staff sick with Covid and I myself just got back to work after recovering from Covid.

‘‘Just when you think things are starting to open up again, you fall sick with Covid which affects you psychologically causing angst and distress.’’

The silver lining Hargraves hopes to soon see is everyone getting on top of the sickness and experiencing organs the way they are meant to be experienced – in person.

‘‘Most organs are in churches and because of sickness people are not going to churches and the organs are not being used.

‘‘When they do start playing the organs after not using them for a while, there are some problems. It’s like sticking your car in the garage for six months and expecting it to work perfectly.’’

The company recently picked up the job of restoring one of the few surviving unaltered George Croft pipe organs, installed in 1904, from the Unitarian Church on Ponsonby Rd, Auckland.

Future projects include the Wellington Town Hall’s pipe organ that will require maintenance on some parts that are completed as well as reinstallation when the hall reopens.

‘‘It will be an important project for next year,’’ Hargraves said.

Hargraves said that project and the pipe organ in the Sacred Heart Basilica in Timaru are the jobs he is most proud of.

There is also work by the company to be done on restoring a pipe organ from St Paul’s Church in Waipara, North Canterbury, and the restoration of a pipe organ at Iona

Church in Port Chalmers, Dunedin.

Talking about the pipe organ industry in New Zealand, Hargraves said the scale of the industry is reducing due to the different options available, such as digital organs.

‘‘Any instrument can be synthesised which reduces the scale of the traditional musical instrument makers industry.’’

Because of that Hargraves said the company will need to adapt to the changing technology and cater for high grade organs because lower grade organs will be the first to disappear in the future.

‘‘In New Zealand we will have to be a bit flexible and meet new technology halfway. We have to adapt and that’s just how life works.’’

The oldest pipe organ they company has worked on is one from the 1700s. It has also worked on pipe organs from the 1800s.

Fewer people were learning how to play the pipe organ and he encouraged others to learn.

The company was struck by tragedy during the 2011 Christchurch earthquake when two of its full time organ builders lost their lives while trying to recover a pipe organ from the Durham St Methodist Church on February 22.

It had been badly damaged in the September 2010 earthquake and deemed unsafe to occupy.

Neil Stocker, 58, Scott Lucy, 38, of Timaru, and volunteer Paul Dunlop, 67, of Christchurch were killed when the church collapsed and buried them under rubble.

Hargraves said he was shocked when he heard the news of their deaths.

‘‘The news evolved slowly about the church collapsing. It wasn’t until the next morning we heard about them.

‘‘I was shocked and it was beyond awful.

‘‘Neil Stocker was our factory foreman and joined the company as an apprentice when I joined in 1968 and rose to the rank of the foreman. It was a big loss.’’

Hargraves said there were originally seven inside the church but the other four were not around when the building fell.