Pumping up the volume!

But could anything ever have the same attraction as the extraordinary concert staged there 93 years ago this month -- when a crowd of up to 30,000 packed the park?

Even though the bill was studded with the era's top operatic stars -- including Enrico Caruso, Dame Nellie Melba, Luisa Tetrazinni and Antonio Scotti -- this was no 1908 version of Pavarotti in the Park.

Nor did the leavening of the programme with music from the bands of the Coldstream Guards and the Royal Artillery and Scottish music hall mega-star Harry Lauder performing "Stop Yer Ticklin', Jock" help to mix the not-so-highbrow with the multitude.

For, in fact, there were no artistes and musicians there at all. All that the tremendous crowd had turned up to listen to was the Edwardian equivalent of a ghetto-blaster -- a gigantic gramophone.

However, the instrument that blared forth the renderings of the early 20th-century's recording stars from the park's long-gone bandstand was not simply a king-size version of an ordinary gramophone. Rather, it was a still-new entertainment wonder called an auxetophone that packed the park with people that June Thursday.

Also known as the Auxeto-Gramophone, it had been devised around the turn of the century by the prolific British inventor, Charles Parsons, whose principal claim to fame was his steam turbine engine that revolutionised ship propulsion and drove generators in power stations across the world. He also developed searchlights, strove to make artificial diamonds and 10 years before the Wright Brothers were credited with the first aeroplane flight, made a steam-driven model helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft, both of which flew.

But for all his extraordinary inventiveness, he was not destined to be remembered for his auxetophone -- despite it being one of the first devices capable of amplifying sound, 20 years before electrical amplifiers were conceived.

His invention literally pumped up the volume by using an electric motor and compressed-air apparatus to increase the action of the "speaker" diaphragm.

The results were indifferent and it never caught on. One reaction recorded at the time was: "Have you heard the auxetophone? It is to be hoped not. All Mr Parsons' turbines will be wanted to take long-suffering humanity out of earshot of his diabolical invention."

Yet, in 1908 -- perhaps inspired by reports from ever-enterprising Blackpool where, some years before, one of the first contraptions was installed at the top of the resort's famous Tower to broadcast operatic arias -- people flocked in droves to be within its range in Corporation Park as a demonstration of the device was staged in two concerts -- afternoon and evening -- by Darwen Street musical instrument dealers Henry Sharples and Sons, who introduced the auxetophone to Blackburn.

But though enormous numbers attended -- with the Northern Daily Telegraph reporting that the crowd at the evening's event was estimated at 20,000 to 30,000 -- it had a mixed reception. For although the old Blackburn Times explained that, despite gramophones being confined "until very recently" to people's drawing rooms and then, as their power increased, to halls and places of public entertainment, while "today the instruments have gained such proportions that they are considered powerful enough to entertain the public in the open air," the prime conclusion of its coverage of the auxetophone's debut in the town was that it was "not yet powerful enough."

Indeed, it prefaced its report with a spoof conversation between an old woman and a young girl at the event, with the old woman asking when the gramophone concert was going to start and, on being told it had already been on for half and hour, saying: "Why, I've heard nowt on 't yet."

But though the Times considered that the "electric auxeto-gramophone" was a "wonderful creation," it added: "Big and powerful as it is, it is questionable whether or no its tone is adapted to satisfy such large audiences as those that assembled on Thursday."

For it added: "On anything like the outskirts of the vast crowd, most of the numbers were lost to those persons so located.

"Of course, those in the immediate vicinity of the stand enjoyed it all immensely for it was a novelty and, like all things out of the common, proved highly interesting to all and to all within earshot.

"That was the only drawback -- not yet powerful enough for the situation."

Strangely, the Telegraph, by contrast, said the sound was best heard from further away -- and could be distinctly detected far outside the park, even in houses more than half a mile away. Its report of the evening performance stated: "Profiting from the experience of the afternoon, when it was discovered that the 'carrying' capacity of the instrument caused it to be heard to a greater advantage at a distance, the visitors spread to the Broad Walk and points still further in the park; and residents of Brantfell Road and at Four Lane Ends were able without leaving home to follow not only the instrumentals but the vocal selections quite clearly."

It added: "The programme was varied to suit all tastes and gave such manifest pleasure that it is in contemplation to repeat the recitals in both Corporation and Queen's Park on several occasions during the summer."