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Stolen flute turns up after 11 years

3/ 1/2004

AN appeal in the Manchester Evening News to find a musician's piccolo stolen from her car before a major concert has finally got a result - more than 11 years later.

Staff at Barnardo's charity shop, in Urmston, uncovered the piccolo - a small flute - in a forgotten corner of their stockroom, wrapped in the original newspaper story.

Now, charity workers are hoping to reunite the rare instrument with its true owner, believing the thieves have suffered from a guilty conscience or simply been unable to sell on the specialist instrument.

Barnardo's shop manager Julie Wilcocks said: "I found it when clearing the top shelf in the stock room and it was in a tatty green box with a piccolo music book.

"We had never sold one before and I was going to call a music shop to find out how much it is worth. But then I saw the newspaper it was wrapped in and thought it must be the one in the story.

"It could have been there for weeks or years."

The Crimestoppers article, published on August 26, 1992, told of Stockport musician Ruth Binks, whose piccolo and flute were stolen from her car outside William Hulme Grammar School, in Whalley Range, Manchester.

Ruth, 23 at the time, told how she was due to play with Opera North at the Edinburgh Festival and would find it difficult without her treasured instruments.

She said: "The flute is an Arista and has a special head joint, while the piccolo is made by a company called Powell which is no longer business. It would be extremely difficult to replace.

"I desperately need both of them for my work and I am offering a reward for their return."

Attempts to locate Ruth have, so far, failed. Opera North says she left the region four or five years ago to move to Scotland. Staff at Barnardo's are now appealing for Ruth's friends or relatives still living in the area to make contact and reclaim the piccolo.

The piccolo is the highest-pitched instrument in an orchestra. Professional standard piccolos can sell for thousands of pounds.

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