Article by: Lee Jones
Finally after agreeing with the seller, confirming my sons help and the hire of a suitable tail lift van, the day had arrived when i would travel up to Derbyshire to collect a Lowrey stardust Organ.
Previous to this day we had a substantial amount of rain, but luckily the 
forecast was good and no rain was in sight for the day. Picked up the Van from Vincents Van hire in Letchworth at 8am on a sunday, we all agreed that a Sunday would be the most convenient for all of us, and a better time to travel, with hopefully less traffic on the roads.
Our ETA in Derby was at 10:00am , and we were on time. arrived at the sellers house and immediately could see they had already removed both the outer and inner doors along with inner door jams, so things were looking good.
After the usual pleasantries, it was down to business of handing over the cash to Bill Dicksons Daughter, Angela, who confirmed everything correct and present and signed the receipt of sale i took with me, of which we both kept a copy.
My son got all the necessary ramps and special platform i had built purposely for the move out of the van, and by this time the Organ had been pulled away from the wall ready to be moved out, but first i wanted everyone to be clear on the procedure as a mistake could be costly if a finger or toe got in the way.
The idea was to place the platform just in front of the feet of the organ, and while the four men just lifted it approximately 8 inches high, Angela would swiftly slide it underneath, and then we would lower it on her command, this worked like a charm and although there where four of us lifting, i think we could all agree it was still very heavy to lift.
The platform worked a treat and it was very evident that at this time there was absolutely no need to strap it down, as it was solid as a rock. moving it across the carpet was just so easy and it was not long before we had it in position at the front door, I had built a smaller MDF ramp to allow the platform to travel up and over the ridge of the door-frame, the other side i had the metal ramp in position ready for the downward leg.
My Son at this point was on the outside and carefully guided it through the door-frame gap with only 3 mm to spare, followed by the other end, but for
some reason it was not quite square in the door-frame and the father in law decided it was going through no matter what and gave it a good shove, and while this worked it did scrape the front edge, which was totally unnecessary as we had already got the first part through without any problems whatsoever, so i was not very pleased as you can imagine.
Running it down the ramp on the other side was a doddle, and two of us pushed it up a slight incline ready to mount the vans tail lift platform that my son had now reversed closer. with the tail lift down to ground level, we moved it closer and i decided it would be safer for us to demount the organ from the platform and have it standing directly upon the tail lift, i am glad i did !!!!
My son stood on the right side of the tail lift, and steadied it while i operated the tail lift button from the ground , it gently lifted the organ, but you could tell it knew it was a hefty weight by the motor straining some what, and making more noise than when it was lowered.
At about ten inches above ground level, and without any warning, the Father-in- law, for reasons still unknown to me decided to jump up on the rear end of the tail lift’s platform,
well this guy was at least 18 stone (252Lbs), and as you can imagine the rear end of the Van sank slightly and tilted the tail lift backwards, at which point there was clearly not enough room and he then jumped off again, causing the whole Van, Organ and tail lift to undulate up and down, my heart came up into my mouth at this point and thought it was going to tip off, luckily it didn’t and quickly levelled out again.
By this time I was getting rather pissed off, and insisted that only my son and myself would be required to move the organ from the tail lift and into the van. I wanted to have it as far as it would go right up with the back of the organ facing the bulkhead of the Van, We also thought it best to lift it off the platform at this point and wedged a one inch dense piece of foam sheeting between the organ and the vans bulkhead to cushion it, and then strap it down.
The journey home was uneventful, and we stopped off for a bite to eat at one of the services, and arrived back home about 1:30pm that afternoon. The sun was glorious still and after a brief rest and cup of tea, we started to unstrap and drag the organ across the van’s floor and onto the tail lift, and lowered it safely back to the ground, what a relief that part was over and everything was still going smoothly to plan.
But there was a problem, we now only had the two of us to get it onto the platform, and my son suggested we lift the tail lift just high enough and level with the height of the moving platform and slide it across, well, it was worth a try, in fact we had no choice in the matter and it worked well, so now all we needed to do was get it into my house.
I had planned on it going around the side of the house and entering from the rear doors that where sliding patio doors, more than wide enough and would present no problems, but we did have another problem to overcome and that is the rear is lower than the front of the house and it has some wooden decking that is about 10 inches off the ground.
At his point the metal platform was to be used again and screwed it to the edge of the decking just in case it slipped away. The idea was my son would push the organ up the ramp with myself guiding it straight an pulling at the same time. This worked well until it reached the top when we realised we had not locked the wheels to stop it turning, and it slid sideways a couple of inches, i swiftly pulled it back straight and it was then a doddle to get it up, the rest was plain sailing getting it in and moving around the inside of the house.
Now how was we going to get it off the platform with just the two of us, at this point I drafted in the assistance of my wife who reluctantly agreed to remove the platform from underneath the organ while my son and i just lifted it straight up. I needed to stand on some 4 inch high planks as my son is slightly taller than myself, and on the count of three we both lifted it just enough for my wife to slide out the platform, within 3 seconds I was calling out to lower it and so we did, what a relief.All that was required was to drag it across to the position it now stands. One thing that is for certain, I Bet not many of these ever get stolen in a hurry !!!
