Concert grand piano strikes a tragic note in removal accident

When Laurel and Hardy did it, everyone laughed. But when removal men bungled the delivery of a real-life grand piano costing tens of thousands of pounds, no one was smiling.



The 9ft 6in long Bosendorfer slipped from their grasp, rolled off the back of their lorry and fell 8ft down an embankment, sounding, according to one witness, 'like ten honky-tonk pianos being hit by mallets'.



One of the men clutched his head as the piano, which weighs three-quarters of a ton and - until that moment - had 10,000 moving parts and 97 keys, came to rest upside down.

The disaster happened in front of horrified organisers of the Two Moors music festival in Devon, who had spent two years raising £45,000 to buy the piano. It was due to be the centre-piece of classical performances but is almost certainly beyond repair.

There are more photos here.