Bathroom scales

He can play the trumpet, four different types of recorder, the Irish bagpipes and the serpent - not to mention the toilet, the bath and the water tank.

It's a strange sight to see Nick, his friendly, smiling face framed by a thick beard, standing in the garden of his Dorset home and blowing into a long pipe connected to the u-bend of a white toilet with a fluffy pink cover.

It's even stranger to hear a low, loud sound - similar to the noise made by a trumpet - coming from the toilet which sits on a small wheeled platform.

But this is the "boghorn" - just one of a flush of instruments Nick has made as he plumbs new depths of musical innovation.

Nick plays the boghorn at concerts across Dorset and further afield, together with the "bath harp", the "tuned drainpipes", the water tank and the "tubular bells".

"I knew it had to be possible, with determination, to make an instrument out of anything," explains Nick, showing me to a seat next to an upturned plastic tank in the sunny conservatory at the front of his cottage in Shaftesbury.

"I thought the toilet bowl should act like the bell of a trumpet or the tube of a trombone, and I already played the trumpet so I wanted to make a brass instrument."

Although the boghorn - a ceramic toilet with long grey and pink tubes flowing from the back - hardly looks like a brass instrument, Nick reveals that it is.

"It's officially a brass instrument because it starts life with a brass mouthpiece.

"The pink pipes give you the treble, and the grey pipes come through the u-bend and give you the bass, so two people can play it at once," he explains.

"There are holes drilled into the copper pipe near to the mouth, and the pipes get bigger and bigger until they reach the end at the toilet bowl.

"It's tuned to B-flat so it really is a concert instrument - I can play it with other instruments because lots of brass instruments are B-flat."

And it seems the boghorn's appeal is no flash in the pan - 50-year-old Nick has been playing it to giggling audiences since 1999.

The idea surfaced when Nick was asked to get involved with a water conservation project run by the environmental charity Common Ground in 1998.

The three-year project was based along the route of the River Stour, from Stourhead to Christchurch, and local people were encouraged to write songs, poems or music with a water theme.

"After about a year they decided it would be fun to put musicians and plumbers together to see what they came up with, and they approached me to ask if I'd like to take part. So I jumped at it," says Nick.

Sturminster Newton plumbers EC Cowley and Sons gave Nick a brand new (that's a relief) toilet, and he got to work on making the boghorn.

"I told them I'd like to make an instrument out of a loo and asked if they had any loos they didn't need. They had some at the back of the store that had never been used, and they gave me the fittings to get it started too.

"It took me hours and hours at home to get the right size pipes to make the notes," he recalls.

"I was already playing the serpent - a very early, simple instrument which is just a long tube with six holes - so I knew it should be possible to make the boghorn like a serpent.

"It's an example of being creative and being determined - and it went down a storm. People love it because it's such a novelty."

Once Nick had perfected the boghorn, it was all cisterns go to tinkle with a few more watery ideas. Before the end of the three-year Confluence project, he made a tea-chest bass - out of an upside-down plastic header tank, a piece of thick string and a stick - as well as some "tubular bells" out of copper pipe.

By cutting some pipes and fixing them into a frame, Nick also made his "tuned drainpipes" - similar to a "massive set of Panpipes" - which are played using bats.

"I wrote to Twyfords and other big plumbing industry firms and asked them if they'd like to donate materials for educational purposes, because I'd started doing music workshops at schools. I was amazed when they started sending lorry loads of stuff down - I had plastic pipes of all sizes, several toilets and some water tanks.

"I told Twyfords I was thinking of making a bath harp so we discussed what kind of materials I'd like. I said I'd like a steel bath, instead of a plastic one, less than 6ft so I could get it in the car. They sent me exactly what I'd asked for and I started working on it straight away. It took a lot of getting right."

Nick strung piano wire across a frame inside the bath to make 30 strings, complete with piano tuning pegs.

"I thought the bath could act as the sound belly. The whole thing stands upright and you can play it with fingers plucking or with hammers. I've also been able to make some semitone adjusters to change key."

By this time the Confluence project had finished, but Nick's creative juices were in full flow.

"I was really now getting carried away because nobody had asked me to do this - I was doing it for my own exploration - but I was very pleased with it because it does make a very nice sound.

"I did experiment with a hot water tank too, trying to make a blowing instrument. I got a few notes out of it but it was a bit limited, and the trouble with me is I want to be able to do plenty with an instrument - not just make a few notes."

So Nick has now set his sights on making a "posh" boghorn using shiny copper and brass.

"It would be nice to make a concert version - a smart one - so it doesn't look so untidy with all these long bits of piping. But on the other hand you could say is there any point, because it adds to the humour that it's rough and ready."

But despite having a good stock of plumbing materials left at his workshop on a nearby farm, Nick says the biggest hindrance to his creative genius will be finding time to develop ideas.

As well as playing his unusual and conventional instruments at regular solo concerts, performing in the Hambledon Hopstep ceilidh band and a brass ensemble, Nick delivers talks to schools, works as a gardener and runs a business with a friend producing kits for opening shellfish.

If he's not making instruments, he's practising them in his garden or workshop, or performing them at a village hall or festival.

His wife Heather, and sons Sebastian, 27, and Samuel 23, have long been used to the sight of Nick blowing into a toilet or making music from an upturned bath.

"I think the boys are quietly proud of my unusual instruments, and Heather thinks the bath harp is the best.

"I don't really have a favourite instrument myself, but the boghorn is fun to play because people enjoy it. It's actually not that easy to play accurately, but I didn't make it for it to be easy."

Nick will be performing in Winchester city centre on August 16 as part of a Common Ground water conservation day, as well as at Chippenham Arts Festival in November. For more information about forthcoming concerts and workshops, call Nick on 01747 853176 or e-mail nick@crump.demon.co.uk