The Eagle Has Landed

The village church at Mapledurham was a major part of the film and at that time I was the regular organ tuner who visited twice yearly to care for the pipe organ.

I was asked to visit to carry out a tuning just prior to filming and arrived to find the church car park full of little cottages, a new water mill built nearby and an aisle in the church which was never open or used was very much open and obviously going to be used in filming.

This resulted in me being unable to work out the plan of the church when I saw the film as the interior looked nothing like it really is.

I was informed that there was to be filming with loud explosions especially in the churchyard but the organ was safe, however this proved to be incorrect as the resultant explosions blew out a window very close to the organ which brought down lots of flaky dust from the roof into the organ.

This meant a lengthy clean/overhaul after filming costing a lot of money to restore the pipe organ to pristine condition.

The cottage I called at each day to collect the key to the church during my 2 week job of restoring was the cottage where Donald Sutherland had that enormous fight at the end of the film.

Yours Keith Petvin-Scudamore (Retired Master Organ Builder)