A BLIND MECHANIC

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 25 June 1924, Page 7

A BLIND MECHANIC

TRIUMPH OVER DISABILITY

There is probably no more complicated and intricate piece of mechanism than a big pipe organ,, and to the urn itiated the great forest of pipes, reeds, levers, and bellows hidden behind the panels presents an impossible puzzle. The organ at the Blenheim Presbyterian Church is at present being over-hauled, after about lb years of service, and a Marlborough Express reporter who called at the Church was amazed to had, surrounded by dozens of pieces of dismantled mechanism not a keen eyed musical mechanic, but a blind man. Air H. Stevens, who has been entrusted with the task of putting the organ in repaii', has been totally blind for some eight years, as the result of a neuralgia attack, but, like so many other blind men, he has practically conquered his disability, and it was a revelation this morning to see the confident manner in which he unscrewed or adjusted tiny portions of the interior anatomy of the great organ, or boldly hauled down some of the huge pipes, which are over eight feet in' length. A good deal of ■Mr Stevens’ work has been done perched with one foot on top of a step ladder and the other on a convenient projection,, but he scoffed at the idea that it was dangerous. There are come 600 to 700 pipes in the organ syid each one of these has to he removed, cleaned and tuned, while there axe hundreds ol levers and other mechanical movements, some tiny as a knitting needle, and others of large size, which have to be attended to, but Mr Stevens knows them all, knows where they belong and wlmt they should do. He does not require eyes for most of the work but he has his devoted wife, Mrs Stevens, beside him, for guidance as required now and then. In course of his explorations in the interior of the organ the blind mechanic has discovered a mouse nest and has accounted tor t rec mice, while he has also found- traces of vats in some of the large pipes of the organ. Mr Stevens has been an organ repairer and tuner and a piano mechanic and tuner for upwards of Ihirtv years. He know every detail of the instruments he handles before lie lost, his sight and ho has bravely de veloned the extra sense with which the blind are endowed and has ly stuck to bis work so that hehasre Ainpd all his old efficiency. There is a fesson to* beleamed bv anyone who car«Tto visit the Omrch and see the «■!*>*_* Brightwater, and the Kenhem organ £ the third he has repaired.)