I've been looking for a good piano for ages. It seems that 'good' ones are actually quite expensive, whilst less than good ones you can't give them away.

Alan Day found me a very nice looking piano in an auction a while ago, which we got for 50 quid. It's very pretty to look at, but won't stay in tune - wooden frame - so I just keep it as a nice piece of furniture.

A lot of pianos are actually quite ugly, particularly the black ones, and are quite overbearing in most modern living rooms, which is one of the reasons that people don;t want them anymore.

However,this offloading has been going on relentlessly since the 60s. I remember when I was at school in the mid-60s, the school used to have an annual fete, and one of the sideshows was the Smash a Piano contest. You used to pay a shilling and get to have a go with a sledgehammer. This was very popular and in order to have enough pianos to last all day, the school used to take donations from people in the couple of months beforehand. They were stored in the bike sheds until the fateful day, and there were usually 20 or so in there.
My mate John Lewis (who later found fame as Jonah Lewie) and I used to play them during the lunchtime and there were several impromptu groups that were formed in that bike shed. John was an amazingly talented musician and could play literally anything on the old joanna, as well as being a dab hand on the guitar. We had some great fun in those sessions.
It's amazing that there are still pianos being chucked out some 45 years later. You'd have thought they would have all gone by now.