Light Console  (1935 - 1955)
Strand

By Adrian Buesnel

My special interest is in the early Compton Theatrone electronic organs, as I own what is possibly the first, dating from 1938. There seems to be very little written material about these organs, less than 20 were made, and I am exploring various leads in the hope of finding out more information.

In a roundabout way, I learned that Compton had some involvement with the Ideal Home Exhibition circa 1938, and wondered if my organ could have been there. Hence I e-mailed the present-day organisers, and have been sent copies a few pages from the 1939 programme and also from a book about the exhibition over the years.

The light show described by Stephen Hancock was the centrepiece of the 1939 exhibition, in front of which Lord & Lady Harmsworth declared the exhibition open. The feature was described as the 'Kaleidakon' and it seems it was just as Stephen described. However the programme states that B. E. Bear was to operate the Light Console. The music was provided by the famous cinema organist Quentin MacLean on a Compton Theatrone (which was not my one). The organ console and the light console were symmetrically positioned facing each other, to one side of the lake. (Whether this was a later repeat of a 1932 feature would be interesting to know, in which case the newfangled electronic organ might have succeeded a live band. Pipe organs were impractical to transport!)

Your picture of the Light Console looks so uncannily like a well-equipped organ console, complete with three manuals of ivories and black notes, stop tabs, thumb and toe pistons, swell pedals and music desk (using organ terminology) that I can only imagine that the 'Kaleidakon' arose out of a collaboration between Strand and Compton (which made most components of its consoles from raw materials-there is a video available which shows the Compton factory in 1936). Indeed the Theatrone organ carries the parallel further, as unlike modern electronic organs, the sound generator is in a cabinet some distance away, containing about 200 relays, a motor and various other equipment, connected to the console by an 'umbilicus'.

I am particularly interested in the organ aspect of the installation, and how this concept was arrived at (presumably Strand had other work at the exhibition). I wonder where further information might be found, and whether there is an account (or even a film) of what the lighting effects looked like, and how they related to the music. Also, what became of the tower after the event?

The article, written by F. P. Bentham is two pages long, describing the installation in layman's terms (and frustratingly simply describes the Compton Console as 'very familiar'). There is a drawing of the Kaleidakon.

By Fred Bentham
Each channel was selected by a stopkey to be "played" on a master keyboard. When off, the dimmer stayed where it was last driven. Each master consisted of twelve keys, three of each colour - white, red, blue and green. The stopkeys were coloured similarly. Dimmers could be moved against their colour master by using "Reverse" and "General Move". Master keys were double-touch giving in fours from the left: Blackout/Dim, Raise/Dim, Full-on/Raise. Dimmers had both series and short-circuiting contactors.

By Stephen Hancock
"Fred Bentham designed the Light Console for the 1939 Ideal Home Exhibition at Olympia. It was for a light show "son et lumiere" style. Using a large translucent perspex tower, several storeys high, in the middle of an artificial lake, it was internally lit with different colours, controlled by the Light Console. The light show was accompanied by music, it might have been a live orchestra even. My Grandmother told me she saw the light show at the exhibition. Maestro (whose real name, I now remember, was Len Jordan) got his nickname from the expert "playing" he did at that show. I know there are some B&W photos of the gig in an old edition of TABS. "