A MEMORIAL service is to be held for a musician who in 2013 celebrated 50 years of playing the organ at churches in the Horndean area.

Derek Hickman (below) of Horndean died last October aged 79, and a memorial service will be at midday this Sunday (April 3) in St Hubert’s Church at Idsworth.

The service will be followed by the interment of ashes, and then light refreshments at the Centrepoint Masonic Hall in Five Heads Road, Horndean.

Derek, then a choir boy, started playing the organ after receiving tuition at Portsmouth Grammar School.

He has played at churches across England, Wales and the West Country, and locally at St Hubert’s – known as the Church in the Field – Holy Trinity Church, Blendworth, and St Michael’s in Chalton.

Derek started playing at St Hubert’s in October 1963 and retired in 2018 after 55 years of playing.

The chair of the Friends of St Huberts, Andrew Callendar, said on Derek’s retirement: “His playing inspired us to raise our voices in praise on bright sunny days when the church door has been left open to allow the music to carry over the countryside, and on freezing winter Sundays when we shivered in our pews.

“We shall miss him.”