Sir – Alan Roberts asks about pictures of the organ at the Regal, Cowley Road (Letters, May 15). The reason it is so difficult to find a picture is that the organ only lasted at the Regal for less than a year.

The pipe chambers were located under the stage, rather than behind the grilles on either side of the proscenium.

Unfortunately, this end of the cinema was (and still is) prone to flooding below the stage area which was, of course, fatal for the organ.

At the opening of the Regal, on April 9, 1937, it was played by the star broadcasting and recording organist Sidney Torch, as part of a dazzling live show on the fully-equipped stage. Flooding problems meant that the three-manual Compton pipe organ had been removed within a year, and ‘reopened’ in a new home at the Ritz, Keighley, in February, 1938.

It was later removed to a local school where it suffered further damage and appears to have been sold as parts. The Regal carried on, organ-less, as a cinema until 1970.

In his other cinema for Union Cinemas in Oxford, the Ritz (now Odeon) George Street, architect Robert Cromie had placed his organ chambers above the proscenium opening — which would have been a much better solution for Cowley Road. This organ survived until the 1963 fire, when it was damaged and, rather than repair it, ABC sold it for spares. A picture of the splendid auditorium shows the Regal organ in pride of place at the centre of the orchestra pit.

Ian Meyrick, Witney