Woman who first heard Compton organ over 80 years ago attends concert

The cinema will close on June 5, and, whilst bosses have been working to ensure that staff have a future in other branches, it has not been said what will happen to the Compton organ that has been a fixture since the 1930's.

A concert was held on Sunday, May 21, which gave residents the chance to hear the organ for what could be the last time.

Edna Martin was in  attendance. Now in her late 80s, Edna has been visiting that cinema for 87 years.

Edna said: "I am probably the oldest person who heard that wonderful instrument on the very first year it was there. I was carried there in my mother's arms, you were allowed to do that in those days.

"I have been listening to that wonderful instrument ever since."

The cinema holds special memories for Edna. She continues: "We are the couple with the 40 year age gap who started all this on the telly without meaning to.

"We met in what was then the disabled access doorway of the ODEON, we will have been married 18 years in July.

"My husband is a retired cinema organist, and he did play in concert there. I was an engineer in my career, and, with a friend, helped to maintain in my own humble way the organ for 10 years. I was the membership and general secretary of the West of England Theatre Organ Society, which was the last society which kept it going."

Speaking further about the concert on Sunday, Edna concluded: "It was a wonderful concert, but a very difficult afternoon.

"It was a very poignant day for us, very difficult."

In a Facebook post about the concert, a spokesperson from Visit Weston-super-Mare said: "A fond farewell.

"It was such a joy to see Weston ODEON's Compton organ played for the last time this afternoon and to a packed house as well!"

The organ is one of just two Compton cinema pipe organs in the country still in use in the location for which it was built, the other being in the ODEON Cinema, Leicester Square in London.