Snips of clips of dings and dongs

Every Sunday during lockdown C and I have been ringing 2 bells at our tower ahead of the live streamed service. I record these on my phone camera and upload the video to my youtube channel, which has a grand total of 15 subscribers, mostly family! I only really do it for my own interest and to link to it on our #bellringing Twitter page so that the church and community can see what we do and that we’re doing our bit to keep the bells going. It always gets retweeted by the city community radio station and the diocesan account.

I send a link to my personal Facebook profile so that my #bellringing friends can watch it if they want to. I suspect no one is really bothered, but again, it’s just about keeping #bellringing out there.

Over the last couple of weeks it’s been surprising to hear that a number of people actually look forward to me posting our exploits. One of the first times I posted a clip of C and I making places and dodging, someone commented on our ringing as being a “master class in bell control”. I don’t know about that. Someone else said that they look out for the post every week and watch it. I guess it might be helping some people feel connected and offering something when so many other people can’t go out and ring their bells yet.

Off the back of all of that we’ve just been asked if an extract of one of my clips can be used as a training aid and a demonstration of good bell control. I’ve never really considered my bell control as being worthy of such interest.

Sometimes, our Sunday morning #bellringing isn’t so great. It can be surprisingly difficult to count to 3. We swap places for a whole pull, hand and back stroke, then back again 1,2,1. Then we dodge so the 2nd bell pulls in at hand stroke and the 1st bell holds off, then at back stroke the now 1st bell holds up and the 2nd bell pulls in. We do that 3 times so that the bell that started off life in 2nds place is now leading first, so we go back to making places, whole pull swap, then swap back again. Then we dodge the other way around so that the pull in and holding up is done the other way around. We do that 3 times, so now we’re back to where it all started. We continue doing that until it either starts to sound a bit scrappy, we lose count or we get bored.

We tend to fit in 3 sets of about 5 or 6 minutes each time. If the first attempt goes well, I won’t bother recording any more, but if it sounded rubbish, or the organ starts blasting part way through, or something else happens that means it wouldn’t be a good sound / visual, I’ll record each time and then pick the best one to upload.

If you go back to the beginning when I first started recording, I had to balance my phone on the table, or the cabinet in the corner, keep it propped up with something so it didn’t slide about or fall over, and put it on selfie mode so that I could see what it was focussing on and make sure everything was in the image. That meant that it looked like the bells had be rehung anticlockwise. Last Christmas C bought be a gimbal so that I can mount my phone steadily and have it record the right way round even with the screen facing you, it’s not on selfie mode that way. It also makes it easier to zoom in or position the view higher or lower, left or right. It would also mean that I could set it to track something moving, or have it perfectly balanced even if I was walking around holding it. At some point I’ll get some decent footage of the bells themselves.

It’s good to hear that my recording are being enjoyed, even if only by a few, and that someone feels that they are good example of bell control. I don’t think I’m in for a BAFTA or Oscar anytime yet though.

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!

Virtual Quarter Peals

C and I were invited to ring in a virtual quarter peal with some friends to welcome a new grandchild for one of the ringers that we ring with every other week. The method of choice was Durham Surprise Minor.

I have never rung this method on tower bells and have only learned it as a result of virtual #bellringing sessions and working our way through the standard surprise minor methods. I did do my usual trick of volunteering for the treble to start with, but then thought that I had learned the method and should really try ringing it on an inside bell. I opted for my next favourite starting position of the second.

I was rather pleased with my performance, as I knew where I was throughout the quarter peal and even knew when other bells should be dodging or elsewhere in the change. At one point it got a bit hesitant, but I knew that I was dodging at the back and therefore two other bells needed to ring before me. C was conducting it, and sitting next to me, heard me say that I was at the back (all other mics were on mute). He was then able to sort the jumble out. I feel that I acquitted myself well and was rather pleased to have achieved a quarter peal in a new method. This is now the 6^th virtual quarter peal I’ve rung.

Being able to use Ringing Room for practicing old and new methods has been an absolute godsend during lockdown and I’ve been really chuffed that I’ve been able to learn methods that I wouldn’t get to ring in a tower usually. This is generally because we don’t ring 6 very often and when we do, the people we ring with don’t tend to know many minor methods. However, with a core of us now ringing these regularly in Ringing Room, maybe we can translate that into the tower when the time comes to returning to ringing properly.

For now, we have to be content with ringing a couple of real bells in our tower on a Sunday morning and ringing all sorts of interesting things in the virtual world.

Planning Ahead

Spent today planning lots of things that aren’t happening yet.

Been asked to make a wedding cake for July and because of the rest it’s all been a bit of a rush and things still aren’t really confirmed, as it all depends on how restrictions are lifted, they have no idea what kind of cake they want. I need to get some idea soon. Fruit or sponge? How many for? Buttercream or fondant? How many tiers? What colour scheme? What sort of decorations? Any many more questions spring to mind. The trouble is, they can’t really answer them yet as so much still hangs in the balance. But I need to get my thinking head on and design it, order whatever I need to order, maybe practice some elements of it, and give myself plenty of time not to panic over it.

After that, I started thinking about a meeting that I had later that evening. Who was due to attend? What do we need to think about? There are several things that are coming up in the #bellringing world that will require some PR work, and it would be good to have a team working on it, rather than just one person. It helps spread the coverage wider, and also helps different parts of the country and world chip in on how it affects (or not in some cases) them.

I’ve written several lists of things that we need to and could ring for, but it all depends on what restrictions are still in place at the time. Some have a much longer lead in time, and others are in the next few months, but need to have a co-ordinated plan.

Then, kicking off next week is the elongated Essex Ringing Course. I have arranged 2 talks and a Bellringers Question Time and opened them out to anyone to register to attend, not just Essex ringers. I need to contact the speakers again and check everything is ok. I need to make sure that everything is set up and ready. I am also helping in one of the groups and the practices are spread out over the coming 2 weeks, so I’ve got to get my brain in gear for ringing lots of Stedman and possibly some Cloisters.

Then at some point in the next day or so I need to make my breakfasts and lunches for work. Albeit only a 3 day working week, as Monday is Bank Holiday and being an office role at the hospital, I don’t need to work Bank Holidays, and of course, I don’t work Fridays as I cram it all in to a 4 day week normally.

And I need to get some housework done. Ah well, that can wait.

Bank Holiday Bells and Baking

There’s something that goes hand in hand with bells and baking really. Many a #bellringing meeting takes place after some actually bellringing, but more importantly what is known as a Bellringers Tea.

A bellringers tea consists of a mountain of sandwiches, savouries, the rare sighting of a salad, but the most important ingredient, and one that teas are often, silently judged on, is cake. Lots and lots of cake. Preferably homemade cake at that.

I’m not sure what came first for me, bellringing or baking? Probably baking actually. Watching my grandad bake and mum having a Sunday afternoon bake up. I do remember a sibling competition on who could make the best choux buns. I seem to remember winning that one!

Anyway, today I did a bit of both.

As usual for Friday mornings, I joined my sister’s group as we practiced some more Wells Surprise Minor and Cambridge Surprise Major, the methods of the month for my Thursday night sessions, that she wants some extra goes at.

As part of the BakedIn baking club, I sent off for the Chocolate Orange Hot Cross Bun kit, and they really had to be made today for the Easter weekend. They were quite straightforward to make, and I cheated by using the kneading hook on my Kenwood rather than busting a wrist trying to knead the dough. C and I decided to go whole hog and add the chocolate chips AND the raisins that were part of the kit as an alternative.

Whilst the buns were on their second prove, I attended a virtual bellringing meeting with the survival and recovery steering group. Lots of good things coming. During the middle of that I had to check on the buns, so before I muted my mic and video, I declared that the answer to everything whilst I was away was “no”, just in case they had any funny ideas about giving a load of actions whilst I wasn’t there to defend myself.

Buns were now in the oven and meeting resumed. Lots more good things discussed and planned. Then I had to rescue the buns from the oven and glaze them, so made another hasty disappearing act. I was quite disappointed that the buns had spread rather than risen too much. They looked ok. They smelled ok. And when we taste tested them, they tasted ok too.

Someone suggested toasting them and slathering butter all over them. That sounds quite disgusting, but then I don’t like butter, or similar, anyway.

I’ll get round to it eventually

Today I managed to tick something off my to do list that has been there since last September. It’s not anything urgent or that anyone else is dependent on, but one of those jobs that would take a lot of time and mental energy and I’d need to be in the right frame of mind to do it. Today was that day.

I’ve been doing a series of interviews with bellringers and posting them to a Youtube channel over the last year, I guess you could call it my lockdown project (despite the fact that I’ve not been restricted by lockdown at all). There was an interview I recorded in September that still needed to be edited and made ready for uploading. It’s not due to go out yet, as there are others ahead of it in the queue, but I kept putting off the editing as I just didn’t feel in the right frame of mind to do it.

Today though, annual report deliveries are much more local, so didn’t take that long to whizz round, so it provided a good opportunity to tick a few longstanding items off the list.

The edit took about 2 hours, cutting out the “ums” and “ahs” and silent thinking pauses, the repetitions and waffle. Its important that each interview covers the main questions and puts both the interviewee and #bellrinigng in a good light. Any references to anything slightly odd needs to come out. I’ve also been taking references to the Covid restrictions out, so that they make the conversations more timeless.

I did also get around to uploading the next interview in the sequence and sharing that, so hopefully people will get to see it over the next few days. The last one I uploaded was 2 months ago, so it was a while overdue. With the one that I’ve just finished editing, I still have 4 interviews to upload in this series. Then there’s the Bellringers Question Time and 2 talks associated with the Ringing Course that will be uploaded. Plenty of content over the coming months.

By the time the last interview has been uploaded, we should be back into some semblance of #bellringing and there might be opportunity to actually record some ringing to showcase what we’ve been talking about in these interviews all this time.

So, 2 longstanding items ticked off the to do list. Only another 3 to go, plus all the stuff that comes in regularly anyway. A good day at the (home) office.

You could get a ring of 8 in there!

Annual Report delivery day #3 took us to the NE of the County and to the home of the NE District Secretary to delivery the reports for the NE District members. One the way back we stopped off at Brightlingsea for our picnic lunch. Neither of us has ever been to Brightlingsea before, and to be honest, are not likely to ever go there again.

However, as you go into the town, there a large church, All Saints, at the top of the hill. We know that there are no bells in there (not for full circle ringing anyway) however the structure of the church and tower could easily take a decent set of 8 bells or event a set of 10. It pinged up on our Sat Nav which is loaded with the Doves Guide points of interest, so it must have a bell in there.

When we eventually got a signal, we checked the new and improved Doves Guide but Brightlingsea wasn’t listed at all. C did a google search and according to the church guide “the most striking external feature is the embattled tower, built of local flint in the last years of the 15th century. The tower stands 97 feet high, in three stages, with a minstrel gallery built into the lowest stage. The tower really is quite remarkable; with one of the finest examples of diagonal buttress bracing in East Anglia” https://www.britainexpress.com/counties/essex/churches/brightlingsea.htm

“Said to be 2 bells, one by William Dawe circa 1400, inscribed Dulcis Sisto Melis Vocor Campana Michaelis. Sanctus uninscribed.” https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1337182

“the ringing chamber presents some curious features; in the belfry are frames for 5 or 6 bells, but only one of the ancient peal, dating from about A.D. 1450, now remains; there is also a small sanctus bell unhung: in 1889 a peal of 10 tubular bells was presented by M. Bayard Brown esq. an American gentleman visiting Brightlingsea in his steam yacht “Valfreyia:” https://ukga.org/churches.php?pageid=4444

Our route back home took us to drop off reports for Inworth (6 bells), Tollesbury (10 bells), Tolleshunt D’Arcy (6 bells), Great Totham (6 bells), Goldhanger (8 bells), Maldon St Mary (6 bells) and Maldon All Saints (8 bells).

So many bells and we didn’t even ring one of them.

Can’t be in 2 places at once

Last night had a clash of #bellringing diaries. I should have been at an advanced district practice but also needed to be at a Central Council exec meeting.

This clash now happens very month. Last year it wasn’t a problem because we weren’t running the advanced practices. However we decided to put them back on the virtual agenda this year and try them out. Last month was the first one and as I set up the Zoom I kinda needed to be there so sent my apologies to the CC meeting.

This month though I needed to be at the CC meeting as I was on the Agenda. I did set up the advanced practice zoom session but needed to hand it over to someone else to run.

It was an interesting experiment. C attended the advanced practice on the PC next to me on my laptop attending the CC meeting. We both glanced over at the other several times and at one point were both talking to our respective meetings at the same time.

I missed out on practicing Little Bob Major and Yorkshire Surprise Major and the fact that they finished soon after 9pm. My meeting went on until 10:20pm.

Next month I’ll probably go to the advanced practice and give apologies to the CC meeting. I’ll probably end up alternating.

Actions speak louder than words

Apparently this term was first coined in its current form by US President Abraham Lincoln during his Cooper Union Address in February 1860, but it may have been first voiced in the English Civil War by John Pym and recorded in Hansard in 1628 as “A word spoken in season is like an Apple of Gold set in Picture of Silver”, meaning that actions are more precious than words.

Today marked the first anniversary of the first UK lockdown of the Covid pandemic and organisations and people came together at 12noon to remember all of those who have died as a result of the virus, and to reflect on the tremendous work that the NHS and other front line services have done.

The Church of England partnered with Marie Curie to mark the first anniversary of the first lockdown in the UK with a national day of reflection to reflect on our collective loss due to Covid-19, support those who have been bereaved, and hope for a brighter future. Bellringers were invited by the Church to participate in this day by marking the end of the one minute silent reflection at 12 noon by tolling a bell.

At work, for the NHS, we had a virtual gathering that embraced the moment of silent reflection, and then words from our CEO and Chair. Later in the afternoon, I happened to be in the queue for a coffee and the CEO was in front of me. We exchanged smiles, and I said that I’d logged on and listened to the “broadcast”. She immediately described how they’d tried something new with the technology and that it hadn’t really worked how they’d wanted it to, so it wasn’t as slick as usual. I told her that that didn’t matter. What mattered is that we took a moment, and in a large acute NHS Trust, believe me that’s not easy, to stop, remember not just those patients we’ve lost, but also a number of colleagues and friends, to give thanks for the effort that the whole organisation has put in to help fight this virus. We were able to take a moment to think about others, and the impact that has had on ourselves, our friends and families, and our colleagues.

The action spoke louder than the words.

Correspondence

This morning C and I went #bellringing as usual. Just the 2 of us keeping things going during lockdown, making a noise and making sure the community doesn’t forget the church is there and the church doesn’t forget the bellringers are there.

When we arrived, we signed in as usual and there was an A4 enveloped waiting for us address to the Cathedral Bellringers, with a stamp on, so we know if wasn’t from the office. They’d usually email or phone me anyway.

First thoughts turn to it being a complaint. But about what? We’re only #bellringing for about 15 minutes, only 2 bells and only on a Sunday morning.

This particular letter had a covering letter and a covering, covering letter. It turns out that there’s someone from Berkshire who has severe autism, has written to us asking us to ring a full peal when lockdown ends. From the covering covering letter, which is from their parents, it seems that this person has been researching #bellringing, listening to #bellringing at churches that are local to them, and has even been looking around complib, the compositions library to find something suitable. Presumably the mathematics of it appeals to them.

The request is well worded and uses the correct terminology, although there are several things wrong with what they are actually asking us to do e.g., ring a full peal, un-muffled (both correct terminology), and the composition requested is 5040 Grandsire Triples composed by Alan S Burbidge (correct). Apparently, Burbidge’s composition is one of the trickier ones. The request has asked us to ring it on bells 2-9 of our 12 which would sound horrid. Not least to say that to ring a full peal will take some time to build up to, given that ringers haven’t been active for a year, we’ll need to build up some muscle tone and calluses again.

From the look of the letters, they appear to be photocopies, and given that its not from a local address, I’m assuming that other towers would have received something similar. It must have cost a small fortune in postage stamps.

Whilst there are many things that we cannot accommodate with the request, I have to say, that it was a lovely surprise receiving a request, in writing, the good old-fashioned way, asking for bells to be rung, rather than silenced.

I wonder how many other towers received a copy of the same letter?