Looking For A Specific Concertina Cartoon

[gcoover]

I'm looking for a copy of a cartoon that I think might have initially appeared in the late, lamented, "Punch" magazine many years ago. It featured a minister standing in front of his flock, holding a concertina, and the caption was something like "...since our organist is indisposed with the flu".

 

Anybody remember this and possibly be able to provide a good quality scan?

 

Thanks!

 

Gary

[JimLucas]

I'm looking for a copy of a cartoon that I think might have initially appeared in the late, lamented, "Punch" magazine many years ago. It featured a minister standing in front of his flock, holding a concertina, and the caption was something like "...since our organist is indisposed with the flu".

 

I don't recall seeing the cartoon, but I think I may have met the minister.

[Wolf Molkentin]

 

I'm looking for a copy of a cartoon that I think might have initially appeared in the late, lamented, "Punch" magazine many years ago. It featured a minister standing in front of his flock, holding a concertina, and the caption was something like "...since our organist is indisposed with the flu".

 

I don't recall seeing the cartoon, but I think I may have met the minister.

 

So you didn't take a picture which might be of service to Gary in place of the lost cartoon?

[chas]

Can't find the one you're after but I do like this one:

 

http://punch.photoshelter.com/image/I0000kcU7PA8lri8

[inventor]

I don't know about "Punch" but I remember this being in the I.C.A. Newsletter some years ago(it could be 20 years or so). As I remember it the caption was "The organ has developed a cypher so - - ".

 

Inventor.

[Stephen Chambers]

I think I saw it in one of the old Frre Reed/Concertina Newsletters that Neil Wayne used to publish...

[JimLucas]

I'm looking for a copy of a cartoon that I think might have initially appeared in the late, lamented, "Punch" magazine many years ago. It featured a minister standing in front of his flock, holding a concertina, and the caption was something like "...since our organist is indisposed with the flu".

 

I don't recall seeing the cartoon, but I think I may have met the minister.

 

So you didn't take a picture which might be of service to Gary in place of the lost cartoon?

 

Oh, it was more than 30 years ago; I didn't have a camera with me; and it wasn't the cartoon story.

 

Visiting, I was waiting to be picked up at a bus stop. Sitting alone on the bench, I took out my concertina and started playing to pass the time. A small van stopped just after passing me, and the driver came back to where I was. He asked if he could give it a try, saying he hadn't played in decades. He hadn't forgotten how.

 

When my friend picked me up, they got into a conversation. I later heard that he was a preacher at a nearby church and that after that meeting he took up the concertina, again.

[gcoover]

Nine years later... found it! 

Quite by happenstance just today, while searching for information on Nellie Power (whom I once had the distinct pleasure of meeting and hearing play in her living room courtesy of singer Bill Price). Exactly where Stephen remembered, in a 1974 Free Reed Magazine. And before that in the Cambridge Evening News.

 

Steve Schulteis and I are working on book of church music for the Anglo, so this is most appropriate assuming the necessary permissions can be obtained.

 

In the immortal words of Commander Peter Quincy Taggart: "Never give up, never surrender"!

 

Gary

[fred v]

I always liked this one.

[gcoover]

Does anyone recognize the cartoonist of the “organist” version?

[Stephen Chambers]

10 hours ago, gcoover said:

Exactly where Stephen remembered, in a 1974 Free Reed Magazine. And before that in the Cambridge Evening News.

 

I'm glad to hear you found it, and where I thought I'd seen it.

 

Quote

Steve Schulteis and I are working on book of church music for the Anglo, so this is most appropriate 

 

I have an 1846 "circular fret" Wheatstone English that was used to accompany psalms and hymns in Stoke Mandeville Old Church, which was closed in 1866 because it was considered unsafe. 

[Paul_Hardy]

2 hours ago, gcoover said:

Does anyone recognize the cartoonist of the “organist” version?

 

Could it be Ronald Searle? He contributed to the Cambridge Evening News for years.

[Ken_Coles]

16 hours ago, gcoover said:

Nine years later... found it! 

Quite by happenstance just today, while searching for information on Nellie Power (whom I once had the distinct pleasure of meeting and hearing play in her living room courtesy of singer Bill Price). Exactly where Stephen remembered, in a 1974 Free Reed Magazine. And before that in the Cambridge Evening News.

 

Steve Schulteis and I are working on book of church music for the Anglo, so this is most appropriate assuming the necessary permissions can be obtained.

 

In the immortal words of Commander Peter Quincy Taggart: "Never give up, never surrender"!

 

Gary

 

I hope (the Rev.) Bill Geiger sees this. He's done quite a few hymns with his Morse EC in the last year or two, starting during the pandemic. (He can correct my recollection!)

 

Ken

[David Barnert]

4 hours ago, Paul_Hardy said:

Could it be Ronald Searle? He contributed to the Cambridge Evening News for years.

 

I don’t think so. Searl’s stuff frequently appears in The New Yorker and is drawn with a finer pen than this one. Also, Gary’s cartoon is signed at lower left, albeit illegibly, but the signature doesn’t look like Searle’s, which can be seen in this example:

 

 

[gtotani]

> Steve Schulteis and I are working on book of church music for the Anglo,

 

I can't wait! (Of course, I will have to wait. I know.)

 

 

Totani

[gcoover]

9 hours ago, Stephen Chambers said:

I have an 1846 "circular fret" Wheatstone English that was used to accompany psalms and hymns in Stoke Mandeville Old Church, which was closed in 1866 because it was considered unsafe. 

 

I hadn't realized the circular-fret Wheatstones were so dangerous! 

[Stephen Chambers]

2 hours ago, gcoover said:

I hadn't realized the circular-fret Wheatstones were so dangerous! 

 

Yeah, right! 🙄 (But my 1910 No. 6 "Special" #25100 is much-more dangerouser!!! 😉)

 

Anyway, it ties the church use of my circular-fret concertina, #1017, to early in the history of our instrument, in the period when church bands (like the one described by Thomas Hardy) were still active - though starting to be replaced by the school ma'am with her harmonium...

 

The site of Stoke Mandeville Old Church, and its graveyard, recently underwent a major archaeological investigation because they were about to be swept away by the construction of the controversial HS2 railway line: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/may/07/unique-opportunity-hs2-unearths-history-medieval-church 

[aeolina]

My thesis chapter on the concertina as an instrument of sacred music covers this.