Sandy MacPherson

Roderick Hallowell "Sandy" MacPherson (3 March 1897 – 3 March 1975) was a Canadian-born (Paris, Ontario) theatre organist in the UK who as the second official BBC Theatre Organist (he succeeded Reginald Foort) achieved considerable broadcasting time in the early weeks of World War II.

From 1928 to 1938 MacPherson was the resident organist at the Empire, Leicester Square, before being appointed BBC Theatre Organist in succession to Reginald Foort, the first holder of that position. During the war years, Macpherson instituted parents speaking to their evacuee children in America live on the radio. He ran a number of request programmes, for instance 'From My Postbag' and 'At Your Request', and on a Sunday evening 'The Twilight Hour'. He also put out programmes with other artistes, for instance, Robinson Cleaver and his wife Molly (who played organ and grand piano), Stephane Grappelli, Oscar Grasso, Gladys Ripley and Isobel Bailey. He even auditioned a young Julie Andrews.

When the BBC briefly switched to broadcasting only light music in September 1939, MacPherson played up to twelve hours per day, also filling in with announcements and programme-notes whilst the organisation hastily evacuated its staff from London to various locations around the British Isles. Pressure from listeners and the press, who quickly tired of this seemingly unending diet of theatre organ day after day, soon caused the BBC to resume broadcasting a wider range of music. In the dark days of late 1939 - early 1940, Sandy's original signature tune, "Happy Days Are Here Again" was decidedly inappropriate to the times and he replaced it with his own composition, "I'll Play To You", a slow waltz which he used throughout the rest of his career(written with Harry S Pepper, a BBC producer). He played the opening music to the radio programme called London After Dark, on the theatre organ in St. George's Hall, London, broadcast 24 August 1940.

Initially during the war MacPherson regularly broadcast on the BBC from the original BBC Theatre Organ (a 4-manual 23-rank Compton)in St. George's Hall until that instrument was destroyed in the blitz on 10 May 1941. Sandy himself was then evacuated and continued to broadcast on a Hammond organ until Reginald Foort lent the BBC his travelling Moller pipe-organ, which was installed in Bangor, Wales, close to Macpherson's then home of Llandudno. At the end of WWII, the BBC purchased the Moller from Foort and moved it to the Jubilee Chapel, Hoxton, East London, where it remained until 1963.

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