SOMEBODY recently asked me a very pertinent question about Worcester's past but, alas, I didn't know the answer.

So I'm turning again to Memory Lane readers to see if anyone can resolve the puzzle.

The important inquiry is this: Whatever happened to the magnificent organ in the city's Public Hall when this building with so many historic associations was pulled down in the mid-1960s as a piece of appalling civic vandalism?

Was the organ dismantled and cast away, or taken to some other significant location where it may still be in use?

I was asked this question the other day by Mrs Nina Richardson, of Penhill Crescent, Worcester who possesses a copy of a printed letter circulated among Worcester's worthies in May 1883 by Richard Cattley, of St Mary's Terrace, Worcester.

It sought cash contributions totalling £788 so that an organ of "some excellence" could be installed in the Public Hall as a replacement for one destroyed a few months earlier in a blaze which devastated part of the building.

Around £1,000 had until then been set aside for the new organ - £700 from the insurance claim and £300 from the city council - but Richard Cattley clearly believed a total of £1,788 was needed "in order to carry out this project in its fullness, including the blowing by hydraulic power, and to provide a first rate concert-room instrument worthy of this important city and county".

I'm not sure to what extent Mr Cattley's appeal for extra cash contributions was successful, but we do know that a superb organ was made and installed at the Public Hall by the nationally-renowned Worcester firm of organ-builders, Nicholsons.

The copy of Mr Cattley's printed appeal letter was originally among the possessions of the maternal grandfather of Mrs Richardson's husband Jeremy - Tom Millage.

Anyone who can provide the answer to the fate of the Public Hall organ is asked to contact Mike Grundy at the Evening News.