Our Story
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Cliff Heppell
c.1965
Since 1911…
The name of Heppell has been synonymous with the North East piano industry for 113 years in 2024 with three generations rolling on from 1911, a year that saw the sinking of the Lusitania, the Mexican Revolution, the first National UK railway strike and Italy declared war on the Ottoman Empire!
However, Jack Heppell, a 16-year-old Geordie with a passion for music was embarking on an apprenticeship that was to lead to over 11 decades of piano repair, maintenance and tuning, which is ongoing to this day.
Alderson and Brentnall, a music shop located at 125 Northumberland Street, just down from the Haymarket in the City of Newcastle upon Tyne was taking on, what today, we’d refer to as Piano Technicians on an apprenticeship basis, and in walked Jack, full of youthful enthusiasm that the bosses-that-be couldn’t turn down taking him on to learn the piano trade.
After leaving A&B, Jack went on to manage piano shops in Newcastle and Sunderland, finally deciding to bite the bullet and go it alone as a solo Piano Tuner and Repairer in 1929. He also had his own band, a four-piece, led by Jack from the piano, which gigged at halls all over the North East.
Jack’s son, Cliff, was born in 1921, and after leaving Rutherford College worked for a while as a warehouseman at Bevans in Byker, but again his love of music shone through, but in 1939, so did the Second World War with Cliff joining up with the Royal Artillery, with whom he was drafted to India, stationed at Deolali, where he joined the Concert Party on trombone, yes…the very Concert Party that his Artillery mate, Jimmy Perry was part of and went on to write It Ain’t Half Hot Mum for the BBC (along with Dad’s Army and Hi-Di-Hi).
On his return to Blighty, thoroughly demobbed, he too drifted into the piano tuning and repair industry, taking over the family business as well as playing trombone and double bass for the Big Bands at Newcastle’s Oxford Galleries, in tandem with the piano work through the 50s, 60s and 70s before concentrating on tuning.
Jack HeppELl
c.1935
The smell of felt & leather
Cliff’s son, Lawrence then turned up in 1964, and grew up in an Arthurs Hill terrace surrounded by bits of piano actions lying around awaiting repair, and the smell of felt, leather and organic horse glue permeating the walls.
Despite showing a strong ability in chemistry and physics, music shone through again as he opted out of his Physics, Electronics and Chemistry ‘A’ Level courses half way through to learn the trade starting in March of 1981 from the expertise of Cliff, passing the same skills that Jack passed on to him, that Jack had learned from Alderson and Brentnall, some 113 years ago.
And to this day Lawrence tunes and repairs the pianos of the North East five or six days a week.
Where we work
We cover most of the North East region, from Cumbria and the Scottish borders to North Yorkshire. This website will take you on a tour of the extensive range of services available, and you can even contact us by email to make or amend service bookings and calls.
