Missing music found

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32660, 16 July 1971, Page 1

Missing music found

A satchel containing irreplaceable music scores belonging to Mr W. R. Hawkey, the conductor of the Christchurch Harmonic Society, stolen from his car near the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Barbadoes Street on Wednesday, has been found. The satchel was discovered on a heap of sand in the Cathedral grounds yesterday by workmen engaged in restoration of the Cathedral. The sheets of badly

soaked by heavy overnight rain, were found scattered nearby. The music was required for a recital which the Harmonic Society will give at Rangiora on Saturday week; Mr Hawkey said yesterday that if the sheets were carefully dried out the score would be decipherable. Workmen who found the music and satchel notified the cathedral authorities who handed them over to the C. 1.8. for examination before handing them back to Mr riawkey.

He said that all pages of the score had been recovered although a number of per-

sonal articles, including a cigarette lighter, were still missing. Mr Hawkey was giving organ lessons in the cathedral about the time of the theft. It was taken from a parked car about the same time another satchel was stolen near the cathedral, belonging to Dr K. O'Reilly, parish priest at Akaroa, who was in Christchurch to attend a meeting of the senate of priests. Pupils at Xavier College yesterday found the satchel in the empty school baths. However, the contents of the satchel, including books, had been soaked by overnight rain.