THE STORY OF THE GREAT STEAM CALLIOPE
Copyright Lindsay Johannsen 2015
Thank you.
National Library Of Australia Cataloguing-in-publication data:
Author: Johannsen, Lindsay Andrew
Title: The Story Of The Great Steam Calliope
Cover art by the author.
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THE STORY OF THE GREAT STEAM CALLIOPE
WATT – Norman Meniscus.
Now there's a name you don't hear much around a footy post-mortem barbeque of a Sunday arvo. This is easily explained, of course. Watt doesn't play football – never did and never will.
In fact except for the odd historian with a side interest in the evolution of musical instruments, Norman Watt's name is pretty much lost to the world in general. And this is a sad injustice, for Norman Watt was one of the great unsung Heroes of Invention, a pioneering innovator whose contribution to industry, the arts and the British Nation was immense – despite its being somewhat indirect and only recognised posthumously more than a century later.
For you see, Norman Meniscus Watt invented the steam calliope.
…Riiiiight, you’ll be thinking. And…?
And well – the reason he now lacks even a by-line in the historical record is because of the overarching fame of his older brother, James – you know, The James Watt, the James Watt of whistling kettle fame and steam engines and stuff. But let me explain.
See in 1764 James Watt was the resident scientific instrument maker at the University of Glasgow, and one day when he was working in his foundry his brother Norman paid him a visit. At the time James was in the middle of a test run on one of his rival Newcomen's steam engines sent to him for repairs and, at the time, was too busy to see his sibling. Instead Norm decided to have a look around.
But just then the Newcomen engine’s large diameter steam input tube suddenly developed a leaky joint, with the escaping steam creating a loud sonorous note, much in the manner of an organ pipe. The steam supply was immediately shut down, but later Norm mentioned to his brother how it reminded him of the wheezy little church organ in the village where they'd grown up, except here the tone was much better.
This later led him to thinking: instead of air-bellows, why not use steam for powering organs. And not just squeaky little church organs either, for with the power of steam truly grand instruments could be created – magnificent ones even – with volume enough and voices enough to rattle the roof joists of even the biggest cathedrals.
And so he set about drafting plans to make his dream a reality. It was a lengthy and difficult job, however, with many complications, and as the months passed it began to take up more and more of his time. Eventually enthusiasm became an obsession consuming his every waking moment – and with it, eventually, all his capital and resources. It also consumed a good deal of capital belonging to others, for Watt borrowed heavily to keep the project alive. Ultimately, though, some eighteen years after his initial inspiration and within hours of the instrument's actual completion, he was declared bankrupt.
A contributing factor was his lacking any sense of reality and, as time passed, the little which may have existed continually diminished – as, too, did any appreciation of scale and restraint the fellow may have possessed. His calliope as originally conceived would have been truly Wagnerian, but Watt was continually revising its dimensions upwards, resulting in an instrument of utterly gargantuan proportions. In fact so much brass did he use in its construction that on being melted down during the darkest days of World War Two it returned enough of the metal to sustain Britain's munitions factories for the remainder the conflict.
The House Of Commons vote in respect of this was not unanimous, however. A move to have it preserved to protect the local variegated damselfly population was introduced into The Commons the by The Honourable Miss Juniper Tinklebell (Conservative, Dingilly Down), in who's electorate it lay. A brief debate was then had, during which a loud interjection to the effect that enough ordnance could be made from it to bomb Germany flat and still leave plenty to corner the market in horse brasses was made. A vote was then forced, with the motion being defeated 324 to 1. (…not that bombs were made of brass necessarily, the interjector later added during a press interview. He'd merely employed a figure of speech, he claimed.)
It was also agreed that before being broken up a party from the British Museum should go there and take photographs and draw plans and diagrams. As a result of this, a small working model of the calliope weighing about one hundred and sixty tonnes now resides in the Museum's labyrinthine basement complex somewhere. It can be inspected by appointment on the second Friday of each month between the hours of 2.00 and 4.00 pm, provided someone is there who can actually find it, and provided also that such a person can be located.
The model is perfect in every detail bar the main pressure-relief safety valve, as for that Watt simply drove a short length of 300mm diameter log into a similarly sized pipe on the side of the boiler, much like a cork in a bottle. And the arrangement functioned perfectly during the boiler's first and only test firing, in that it failed as planned – except to say that its failure occurred slightly later than anticipated, by which time the steam pressure had reached a degree to which the "cork's" ejection occurred hypersonically and with consequences.
Prominent among these was the apparent annihilation of a tomcat belonging to Watt's two landladies, the Misses Pettiford-Grayling, it being presumed at the time to have been sleeping on a mantelpiece in the main building, some eighty metres and four rooms from their unused, three storied, sixty four square coach house/servants quarters Watt was renting to house the great machine.
Watt was not there to witness any of this, however. By a cruel twist of fate he was hauled off to face bankruptcy proceedings while waiting for the steam to reach operating pressure, his vigorous protestations being seen purely as an attempt to avoid arrest rather than to obtain leave so as to damp the boiler's priming fire. This left the firebox unattended and the boiler pressure steadily rising, until, shortly after their departure, the automatic steam-powered coal-feeding mechanism in the basement came into action, lifting the rate of coal input considerably.
Added to this, a family of field mice had taken up residence in the ground floor room above, wherein was housed the pressure regulator's seven tonne input-rate feedback device. They'd used a section of the hemp rope going down to the coal feeder's speed-control arm for nesting material, leaving the rope hanging slack and the control arm reposing on "Max". As a result the feeder continued pouring coal into the firebox in bulk.
Half an hour later – and moments before the boiler would have reached "Rupture Explosively" mode – Watt's "cork" was ejected, so relieving the containment vessel of its steam pressure, the coal loader of its labours and the cat (presumably) of its mortal coil. (Well neither the animal nor any trace of it was ever seen again, see. And its favourite mantelpiece had been comprehensively obliterated).
So Watt never did get to trial his great instrument, and neither did he return there. And while repairs to the manor house were certainly effected, the building housing his huge steam calliope simply had its ruptured walls barricaded and its doors chained and locked, following which the whole thing was left to the local bats, owls, pigeons and spiders.
And this is how the situation remained for a great many years, until, one day, an up and coming young pianist and composer named Lorenzo D'Arpeggio somehow came to hear of it.
D'Arpeggio was from Barcelona. An extremely self-confident young man, he was impulsive by n
ature, burning with ambition and utterly certain of his destiny. And, naturally, on receiving acceptance from the Royal Academy he'd moved to London to further his studies.
His father was employed by the Spanish Railways in their Barcelona steam locomotive workshops. As a result of this (and prior to following his musical calling), the young Lorenzo had first been required to complete an apprenticeship as a steam fitter.
He was not one to do anything by half measure, however, and at the conclusion of his training was presented with the prestigious and rarely awarded Spanish Railways' "Gold Barrel-union" trophy, complete with its mahogany shield and engraved Certificate of Merit – also of gold. And the conclusion we can draw from all this is that, unlikely as it may seem, the composer and pianist Señor Lorenzo D'Arpeggio would have known a thing or two about steam plumbing, and no doubt would have recognised a faulty left-hand scranson barrel-union nipple when he saw one.
How the fellow gained access to the calliope remains unclear, but after inspecting it in detail he found 1), that the machine was worthy of his vast, self-recognised talents, 2), that except for the defective coal-feeder regulating rope and the boiler's missing "safety valve" stopper the instrument was essentially complete and operational, and 3), that following removal of the accumulated dust, bird droppings and spider webs it would need a jolly good cleanup.
He also discovered in a cabinet full of plans and diagrams just who it was had built the thing. As a consequence, by way of a personal tribute, he decided to compose for it a towering masterwork, following which he would play its inaugural rendition on Watt's mighty steam calliope itself.
For inspiration he used the story of Watt's life, from the great invention's conception, through its building and the debtors' prison business, to his untimely death in a rabbit trap on Laird MacGonagle's estate during a poaching excursion.
And what a powerful and moving piece of music it is. In the opening bars we can hear Watt, almost overwhelmed by this divine revelation: that he build an organ powered by steam! …realising in the same moment how it would free at a stroke the thousands of altar boys currently being pressed into service to pump the church's many clerical organs.
After having the great instrument and its premises thoroughly cleaned, D'Arpeggio oversaw the single replacement and one repair needed to render the calliope operational again, following which he had the firm of consultant boiler maintenance engineers light-up the great machine's firebox. That done, the engineers and cleaners were all paid out and dismissed, D'Arpeggio wanting to bask in the glory of his supreme compositional achievement's inaugural performance in the presence of his greatest admirer – that is to say, the one and only Sẽnor Lorenzo D’Arpeggio himself.
A short time later, as the boiler system neared operating pressure, D'Arpeggio, resplendent in attire more suited to a Royal Command Performance, ascended the great marble staircase – first to the mezzanine stage, then onward to the palatial console suite, wherein Watt had housed the seven ranked keyboards, the ornate inlayed and gilded control stops and the coal-feed mechanism's pull-cord adjustment lever. And then, face strained with either the emotion of the moment or his regularly occurring constipation (and the stops all set at Fortissimo Mostogrando Profundo), he leant over the great keyboard complex and played the dramatic first chord to his great composition, that wonderful opening chord we have all come to know and love so much.
And that was the last thing D'Arpeggio ever heard, for in that instant his aural organs were rendered utterly lifeless; nerve endings fused, their tiny bones ruptured and bleeding and his eardrums shattered – along with every window in a five kilometre radius. Farther to the north a ninth century castle in a fair state of preservation was reduced to rubble, though this was later attributed to vandals.
As a result of these events the calliope became the focus of much local community anger, and later that day the sisters Pettiford-Grayling narrowly escaped being stoned by the villagers for harbouring such a Frankenstein's monster – before Dr Frankenstein even – fleeing the mob in the carriage of a prosperous glass merchant who happened to fancy them (and who was also aware of the opportunities the aforegoing events had created.)
Subsequent to their departure the villagers put the Calliope's premises to the torch, though it was quickly extinguished by an Act of Providence in the form of a violent cloudburst. The storm also served to dampen the rioters' enthusiasm, initially forcing them to find shelter and then driving them back to their homes. And from that day hence the place was shunned and the locals' lips were sealed on the subject.
Initially this was just out of embarrassment, but it was soon applied to visiting scrap metal merchants or other seekers of fortune when they were around.
More years passed, and then, one day, long after the manor property had been abandoned, the Dingilly Down County Council decided to resume the land. Some claimed it was done to make way for a coal gasification works and others that it was for a rail yard and workshops, but nobody really knew.
Whatever the case, the site preparations had only progressed as far as the derelict manor building's demolition before work was halted by the combined efforts of the Ambleford and Watting-on-Deedle Forest Mushroom Preservation Society and the Save The Rufous Tittwiddle Foundation, with each accused in turn of importing forest mushrooms and/or rufous tittwiddles into the locality.
As a result, the ruins holding Watt's great steam calliope – by this time thoroughly overgrown with blackberry and ivy – were again left to moulder away in peace. Eventually, hidden from the world's changing generations and forgotten, the whole calliope business gradually became lost to the realms of human knowledge.
Almost. Practically altogether. Very nearly absolutely even.
And this was how the situation was to remain for more than a hundred years, during which, out in the surrounding countryside, there came into being a great many stories of ghosts and banshees and things going “OOooOOO” in the night. Apparently, on those evenings when the breeze was in just the right quarter and not too strong, the occasional eddy would find its way through the brambles and into the great pipes, and across the darkening countryside's field and fen a strange sound would be heard, a voice in torment, almost, coming seemingly from everywhere and yet somehow from nowhere.
The crying of lost souls, some said, others that it was simply atmospheric vibration brought on by people meddling with electricity and other things they didn't understand.
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