What a busy day

Following on from the events of Friday, Saturday was just as manic.

I was due to be helping C with his #bellringing students learning Stedman Doubles but no sooner had we got settled my phone rang. This was the first of 5 conversations with different media throughout the day. I wasn’t much help to C at all.

I ended up giving one interview over Zoom, 2 others over the phone at home, and one whilst I was actually walking into the city to toll our bell for Prince Philip, which was going out live. I sounded really out of breath. The wind was making my eyes water which in turn made my nose run. I desperately wanted to sniff but didn’t think that would sound pleasant over the radio.

Then I tolled our 10th bell, half muffled 99 times, once for each year of HRH’s extraordinary life. There were a few more people in the cathedral when I came down than when I went up so I hope the ringing brought them there.

Back home to some more emails and another phone call from the press, who wanted to quote a unique headline but I told her that tolling a bell when someone dies is not unique. She laughed and said that I’d just ruined her headline but she was glad she checked.

I had a couple of hours rest before gearing up for Bellringers Question Time. This is where we have a panel who answer questions they’ve never seen before, some serious, some silly. I had organised the event and invited some ringing friends to be on the panel. I was so pleased with how it went. They were interesting and entertaining, as I knew they would be. I thank them wholeheartedly for saying yes when I asked them.

The session was recorded, so after it ended I needed to edit it slightly, then upload it to our Youtube channel. This took about an hour or so.

I slept well last time!