The poet laureate, Simon Armitage, has appeared on BBC1’s The Repair Shop on Wednesday, hoping that organ restorer David Burville could revive a treasured harmonium, the subject of one of his poems.

In the poem, ‘Harmonium’, Armitage records that “The Farrand Chapelette was gathering dust / in the shadowy porch of Marsden Church / and was due to be bundled off to the tip / or was mine, for a song, if I wanted it.”

What sort of state was it in? “Sunlight through stained stained glass … / had aged the harmonium’s softwood case / and yellowed the fingernails of its keys, / ands one of its notes had lost its tongue / and holes were worn in both the treadles …”

The harmonium has poignant associations for him: he and his late father Peter both sang in the church choir. “Its hummed harmonies still struck a chord: / it had stood facing the choristers’ stalls / where father then son had opened their throats”.  

In the poem Armitage recounts how his father helps him to carry the harmonium away - “and him being him” then jokes that the next box his son will have to carry through the nave …  

You can watch the programme here 

You can find the ‘Harmonium’ poem in the collection Magnetic Field, The Marsden Poems.