Who we are at Allen – Paul Arkwright

Paul Arkwright – Service Manager and now one of our two Company Directors

I’m Paul, one of the Directors here at Allen Organs in the UK. I have always had a love of pianos and organs and started learning the piano at 6 years old when I was growing up in Watford.  My family were given a piano by a next-door neighbour and I had lessons with a local piano teacher.  In 1971, my family moved to Croxley Green and I couldn’t get to my piano teacher but I joined the choir at St Oswald’s Church, Croxley Green which was about 100 yards from my home and continued playing the piano.

One weekend the organist simply didn’t turn up and the choirmaster, Michael (who is still a personal friend), knew I played the piano and asked me to play the organ – I was able to sightread the music but obviously couldn’t play the pedals. 

The church realised that I could be of some use as an organist – I was not of much use in the choir – so they offered to pay for me to have organ lessons on the fantastic Binns organ at Christ Church Watford taught by Mr Sharman. https://npor.org.uk/survey/D05976

At that time St Oswald’s had a Miller electric organ.  I played the organ on a Sunday at church and they let me in to practise in the church during the week. I was hooked… playing the organ was much more interesting than school!  The organ at St Oswald’s was changed for a Livingston Chorister 269 and I played the organ, went to school and my only other interest was electronics – I built my own radios and oscilloscope and re-built anything I could get my hands on.

When I got to 16 I finished taking my ‘O’-Levels and started looking for a job – I am the oldest of 4 children and I wanted to work.  The only thing I knew was that I wanted to work with pianos or organs (preferably organs) I went to the library and looked up every piano and organ company I could find and started writing to them.

I was offered an interview with Bill Walker at Livingston Church Organs in St Albans I got the job and started assembling printed circuit boards for organs. They sent me to college one day a week where I studied electronics. By the early 1980s my friend Simon had a girlfriend who worked at Universal Keyboards, based in Watford, Southampton and Wolverhampton. I was offered a job as their Service Engineer. They gave me a Vauxhall Chevette as a company car and sent me all over the southeast and the midlands.

In 1979 I went to my first Carlo Curley concert at Ally Pally and met Liz, my future wife, and the other Company Director here at Allen Organs – I would add that she was a quite a lot younger than me as her father Peter Flatau was one of the Directors of Allen at the time and I think she was about 6 or 7 years old.

Over the next few years there was a shortage of engineers, so I decided to become self-employed and worked with a number of music shops dotted around the southeast.

In 1984 Allen Organs re-located from Surbiton to High Wycombe and their engineer Rod didn’t want to re-locate. Bill Walker was working for Allen Organs and suggested they contacted me which they did. On the 21 January 1985 I started with Allen Organs as their UK Service Manager… and the rest as they say is history! I’ve been all over the world with Allen, visiting their factory in Macungie often – I’ve been to Sierra Leone, Nigeria, India, Liberia, Tanzania to name a few places.

I have an enduring love of Allen Organs and I am so proud to be training the next generation of Allen Engineers in the UK and handing on my knowledge and experience.  I simply cannot imagine working with any other manufacturer as the backup and support we get from our longstanding relationship with our colleagues in the factory is second to none – I am very proud to call many of them including the President of Allen Organ Company personal friends, who celebrate our achievements as a company with us.