AFTER nearly eight decades of providing music in churches, the Rev Glanville Magor has played his last note – and can only be replaced by a machine.

The 86-year-old has been singing in choirs and playing the organ for 79 years and in his later years has been playing the organ in West Bay and Uploders Methodist churches and in the United Church in Bridport.

Also well known for his Punch and Judy shows, the Reverend decided that partial sight loss and increasing deafness must spell the end of his musical contributions.

Now the congregation of Uploders chapel is faced with finding around £2,000 to replace him with a Hymnal Plus.

Steward Richard Plummer did the research on the machine after it proved impossible to replace the Rev Magor with an organist prepared to play regularly.

The Hymnal Plus has a library of more than 2,870 tunes and can even read the lessons. Congregation member Margaret Nicholson said: “This machine was demonstrated in the chapel and all those who heard it, agreed that it seemed very suitable for our needs.

“Not only can we choose the hymns we want, it can alter both the sound and the speed of the hymns and can even read the lessons.

“It can be set up before the service and is controlled by pressing buttons. It is not cheap but if the alternative is singing without help as we did once in the past, we feel we have no choice.”

The Rev Magor first played the organ for a service on Palm Sunday 1942 at the Emmaneuel Parish Church in Loughborough.

As a teenager he was appointed organise at Rempstone Parish Church in Nottinghamshire where he played until he left college and went to work in London on jet engine research.

In London he learned to play the piano accordion for outdoor services.

As head of department in a teachers’ college he played continuo for a string ensemble and during that time played the organ for a concert in Freetown Cathedral, Sierra Leone.

The Rev moved to Bridport in 1990.