I was reading an article about how a woman and her child walked round and round in circles in the deep snow like Winnie the Pooh and Piglet. It had no purpose, barely counted as exercise and once more snow fell they’d do it all again. Sometimes for over an hour. #bellringing can be a bit like that. We can go ringing, be it practice night, a quarter peal or peal attempt, a training day or service ringing. Sometimes #bellringing can have no real purpose but we do it anyway. When the child was asked why she was trudging in circles in the snow for ages, seemingly pointlessly, her simple answer was because it’s fun. #bellringing can be like that too!
Ask people who make sand sculptures, or balance stones, why they do that when they know their efforts will be lost to the elements, and they’ll tell you that it helps them shed stress, entertain others and in some cases “mess with people’s heads”. #bellringing can be like that too! Once we’ve rung our bells, the sound is lost for ever (unless you’ve recorded it and uploaded it to YouTube). It was transitory; there and now gone. But we do it for the fleeting joy of the activity itself.
We can spend a lot of time obsessing over personal goals and problems, feeling the weight of expectation and the fears that go with them. #bellringing can trick us into take a break from all of that. I often consider it therapy after a bad day at the office. To be able to do something physical, that requires my full attention, and stretches my brain. It can become a meditation, a moment to be in the present. When we ring with others we can feel that we are part of something bigger but it’s equally as transient as our few moments or hours of #bellringing itself.
When we think of #bellringing vanishing into the larger scheme of space and time, along with any method mistakes we may make, we needn’t be afraid to try a new bell, a new method, have a go at conducting something for the first time. In the few moments that follow, it becomes ephemeral and consigned to history.
I run a friends and family virtual #bellringing session on a Thursday evening. We have methods of the month, so we have four or five weeks to really get to grips with them. This has been successful to varying degrees. At the beginning of each month when we start new methods everyone is a bit tentative but its good to see that by the end of the month everyone is much more confident, and we can get plain courses round and even sometimes venture into touches.
For July I decided to try splicing two of the methods that we had previously rung rather than try to learn another new method. This was to help consolidate our learning of the previous methods and introduce some people to the concept of splicing methods together and getting to know the lead end order.
I, for one cannot recite lead end order of methods, not even the ones I know very well. Therefore, I do struggle a little when we splice some together, although I find it easier on tower bells than on virtual bells. I totally understand the theory of the place bell that you are at backstroke when the method is changed, but for some reason really struggle to see it on Ringing Room in either 5ths or 6th place. I can see it better in 2,d 3rds and 4ths. This inevitable means that I go the wrong way, and there’s a bit of a hiatus and/or clash as the bell doing to opposite work is trying to do what they should be doing.
As with all of these new methods we are trying, I’m sure towards the end of the month it will be much improved. What was noticeable last week was that on the Thursday evening I really struggled, yet on the Friday morning at a different practice but ringing the same things, I got it so much better. Maybe it’s the difference between a practice in the evening after a day at work when my brain isn’t in gear, to first thing on a Friday morning, when its all fresh and keen. I don’t know.
It was lovely to see our “sometimes” visitor Will this week who we haven’t seen for a couple of months. He has an open invitation to come along when he can, so we never know if he’s going to show up or not, and he takes pot luck on what methods we are ringing, but it expert enough that it doesn’t matter to him. Apart from C and myself, he’s never met any of the others in our Thursday night group in person, but it’s lovely that everyone is welcoming and friendly, and he joins in with the post ringing chat. We’ve had some cracking conversations.
As with real ringing, there’s an element of apres ringing, in a virtual pub instead of the real thing, but C and I do take the opportunity to crack open a bottle of beer. It’s almost like the real thing.
Like so much else we are waiting for the chance to get back to real ringing, practice nights, quarters and peals… and the pub!
That quote is possibly attributed to Henry Ford. In the context I want to explore it is about thinking creatively about #bellringing publicity and recruitment opportunities. As part of a talk I did last year, I then wrote out the main points of the talk and they can be read in sections as part of the joint Association of Ringing Teachers (ART) and Central Council’s Recovery & Survival Toolkit. If you’re a real insomniac you can also watch a recording of my talk.
Sometimes as bell ringers we are not terribly inventive with how we reach out. We trot out the same talk, or the same set of generic display boards that don’t appeal directly to the audience we are trying to engage with. Here were my thoughts on thinking creatively for publicity and recruitment opportunities.
Basically, to start with, anything goes. You might have to rule some of it out due to cost, or health and safety etc, but don’t let that stop your creative juices from flowing. Try to get out of the habit of “We already tried that and it didn’t work”. It didn’t work then, but things and people have moved on, so it might work now. And the other one is “We don’t do things like that around here”.
Be imaginative with imagery, don’t be afraid to use something contemporary and different from the usual picture of someone pulling on the end of a rope that doesn’t appear to be attached to anything, or a bell that looks seems disconnected to the action. Do we want to continue to use the same stuffy images of bell ringers and ringing as we’ve always done, or are we trying to reach new audiences by using evocative images that connect to our objective?
Make sure that you know what the project goals are and keep them in mind. Are you trying to recruit, are you trying to raise funds?
Make sure you have all the facts to hand. If you are raising funds for a restoration project, make sure that you know how much you need to raise, what the project actually entails and so on.
Use your own experiences and expertise to fill in the story, you know the people, the bells, the local community, previous momentous events and inspired.
Look for combinations that tie in with what your objectives are:
Is the local school having a fete if so could you take along some handbells or a mini ring? Is the town centre having a celebratory day?
Did you know that a lot of counties have a County Day? Could you use this day to organise ringing in all your local towers or your whole Guild with have a go sessions included as a mass recruitment opportunity?
If you find yourself stuck for ideas, or going over the same thing again and again, sleep on it, take a break, do something else for a while. They say our best ideas often come when we least expect them.
Keep a checklist of all your ideas and the pros and cons of each. You can extend it to include the activities involved in each idea, the costs and time associated with each idea.
Always run your ideas by someone else. Preferably someone not connected with it or a non-ringer:
Does it make sense?
Does it grab attention?
Particularly if you are writing an article or producing a leaflet or other materials, always get someone to proofread it before sending it off.
Come up with ideas together. Creativity sparks creativity. Someone may have the nub of an idea but someone else may be able to see how that could develop and become a bigger and better idea, but be careful, don’t make the team too large otherwise you’ll never get anything done and may spin around in “group think” where no new ideas are generated.
For the first time in about 7 months we are looking forward to having other ringers in the tower with us for Sunday service #bellringing. There is still only likely to be 4 of us this week but it will make a real change to hear more bells than the usual ding and dong C and I have been doing.
Sticking to the guidance issued by the Central Council the most we can have in the tower is 6 people for no longer than 45 minutes, with masks and good ventilation.
In preparation C and I did a bit of a spring clean. We took some cleaning equipment with us, including the ostrich feather duster I blagged from conference about 6 years ago. C was in charge of the high dusting on account of his longer reach.
Whilst he did that I tackled the spiral staircase from the ringing room down to ground level, some 52 steps. That job hadn’t been done for a very long time indeed. Probably not since our deputy tower captain’s late wife last did it. I wore a mask and had glasses on to protect from breathing too much dust and cobwebs in.
I left C to do the rest of the vacuuming whilst I did my best to resemble a chimney sweep.
When I came back upstairs I hadn’t realised how dirty I’d got until I happened to see myself in the mirror. I was filthy. It was in my hair, all over my face, on my glasses and some had got through the mask so my face was covered. My neck and decolletage were covered. I had to blow my nose a dozen times before the black stuff stopped coming out.
It took us nearly an hour to complete our mission but we were very pleased to have done it.
Afterwards we bought some lunch and strawberries, cherries, grapes and raspberries from the High Street farmers market and sat in the park in the sunshine. A well earned repost.
Hopefully we’ll be up to six ringers next week but for now I’m excited at the prospect of four.
You will have read before about this virtual #bellringing platform called Ringing Room that enables bell ringers from all over the world to ring together in a virtual world, given we have not been able to ring much in the real world.
I started using Ringing Room in May 2020. It had been around for a few months already by then and the developers were still making changes to it, enhancing the user experience, fixing bugs etc. I even managed to get it featured on the BBC 10pm News in June. It has revolutionised ringing from being able to ring with our friends, meeting new friends, ringing with people from anywhere and everywhere, and ringing things we never thought we could in a tower. There are even several groups of new ringers who have only ever rung in Ringing Room and never stepped foot in a tower and tried real bells.
The development is ongoing, and Wheatley was introduced more recently. Wheatley is basically a bot that will ring all of the others bells unassigned to people, so if you want to ring something on 8 bells but only 6 people are there, Wheatley will fill in the gaps. I think Wheatley will be greatly missed when we go back to tower ringing and meet one or two short!
The developers were rightly rewarded earlier this year by winning a large financial prize at the Association of Ringing Teachers awards. And still the platform goes from strength to strength. What started off as a big of a hobby experience rapidly has been the saving grace of ringers everywhere. It has 5 servers in 4 different countries. I ring in 2 or 3 regular sessions per week, with the occasional extra practice every now and then, so get good use out of it.
Ringing Room is free to use. It doesn’t spam you with emails once you’ve signed up. It doesn’t bug you if you haven’t visited the site in a while. It quietly sits there, ready when you are. Every now and then I remember to send a donation. There is a facility to do this on the Ringing Room site, but again, it’s a button that quietly sits there, doesn’t shout out at you, doesn’t draw your attention to it, makes no expectation and there’s no pressure.
I was about to make a donation again when I saw a new option – to become a Patron by making a regular contribution. Being able to donate regularly would be easier for me, so I wouldn’t forget, but also provide the developers with a more regular stream of income to support the platform and future developments. There were 3 options, £3 per month, £10 per month and £20 per month. There was still the option to make a one of donation of any amount. I had no hesitation in supporting the £20 per month option. The value I get out of it is more than worth it. Patrons would also get access to exclusive voting privileges on new features to be added to the platform.
There are I don’t know how many thousands of users of Ringing Room now, and if each of them made a small contribution to the upkeep and development of the platform, it would be a small way towards thanking the developers for the extraordinary work they have done in creating Ringing Room.
Some people might think that Ringing Room will have its day once we are able to get back into towers to ring real bells, but I for one fully intend to keep using it, even if its for my own practice. I don’t think I’m alone in that thought.
Although there has been no group #bellringing for such a long time now C and I have been going to the Cathedral and ringing two bells just to keep things going.
This week however we are away visiting E&M so not able to go to ring. In ordinary times we would go with E&M to their tower to ring on Sunday bit as they’re not back ringing yet either, we had the morning off.
An odd feeling to not go ringing but after yesterday’s marathon walk around Hardwick Hall we were all exhausted and enjoyed a couple of extra hours sleep.
I am looking forward to returning to the Cathedral next weekend when we will have a couple of extra of ringers for the first time in many, many months. The rules still only allow six people with social distancing, masks and good ventilation but it will be fantastic to hear more than ding and dong and try real ringing methods.
As we head into June and the possibility of no restrictions after the 21st (fingers tightly crossed) we may also be able to start practices again. I know many towers already have but because we are very reliant on people from other towers supporting our practice we’ve decided to hold off for a while.
It will be interesting to see and hear how we get on when trying to raise and ring the heavy bells for the first time in 16 months. Managing people’s expectations of what they could and should ring might be a challenge.
From what I’ve read on social media from other towers it seems that there has been a positive community reaction to bells being rung again but then I upoose no one is going to share any negative responses they’ve had.
I always share details of what ringing we are planning and what we’ve done on our Twitter account and tag local radio, the diocrsan office, the cathedral, local city sites as well. Some are really positive and like and share our posts which is lovely.
I want to build a closer relationship with the cathedral and diocesan offices and local community sites so that they start to fully consider the advantages that bellringers bring to church and community.
I’ve already had conversations with the cathedral office about a diocesan wide ring to mark the enthronement of our new Diocesan Bishop later on in the year and look forward to some closer links.
One of the things on my To Do List is to update our entry on the Cathedral’s website. They are getting a new platform and whilst migrating things across, it has given them a chance to update things and make them look brighter with lots of fabulous photographs. I was asked to update the #bellringing entry, which to date, has been rather modest, and quite difficult to find.
I was looking around for information that others might find interesting and came across something written by I don’t know who, about the history of our bells. From early recording of possibly 4 bells, over the years we have augmented, had completely new casting and doubled from the 6 bells that were first recorded in 1768 to the unique set of 12 (+1) we have now. Here’s an extract:
The mediaeval church tower probably housed bells but little is known about them until the 16th century when, in 1560, bell metal was given by William Reynolds, William Mildmay and Richard Maryon, churchwardens. In 1586 a rope was made for the ‘great bell’, and by 1591 there appears to have been four bells.
Ringers were active in the 17th century for they rang in 1624 ‘when the Prince came home’ and were paid 5s. In 1685 the parishioners sought to put an embargo on the ringers’ pecuniary gains for they informed the churchwardens they should not “at any time upon a publick day of rejoycing give above seven shillings to any Ringers and if the Ringers of the Town refuse to ring upon such publick dayes of rejoyceing, it be ordered that ringers be not permitted to ring upon their own pleasure.”
The present Sunday Service band (currently 5 ringers plus others from neighbouring towers) regularly rings for morning services on Sundays (outside of pandemic times), as well as for Weddings and for other special occasions. The current custom is to attempt a Quarter Peal on the first Sunday evening of each month after the 3.30 evensong in order to provide a means of reinforcing what has been learnt during practices on Monday evenings. These quarters are on 8, 10 or 12 bells supported by ringers from other local towers. The band continues to do well in local and county striking competitions.
There are only two other rings of 12 bells in the and we can justly feel proud of our bells and the long history of ringing here.
From 6 to 8 bells
In 1768 Morant, the great local historian, recorded six bells at the church. Originally there appears to have been a ring of eight, but the parishioners gave two of them to a neighbouring church in exchange for their chimes. However in the 1770s there was an awakening to the art of change ringing, and on 11th July 1777 a new ring of eight cast by Thomas Mears was opened with a peal of Plain Bob Major to celebrate the occasion. In the space of a few years the Society of ringers was second to none in the eastern counties, gaining a reputation for ‘exactness of calling and striking’ far and wide, one noteworthy achievement being a ‘long length’ peal of 10,080 changes, in 5 hours and 50 minutes of non-stop ringing, at at another neighbouring church, in 1819.
10 Bells
In 1820 two new treble bells were added at the Cathedral, making ten in all, but the Society seems to have dwindled in the 1830s and there was no active resistance when the two new trebles were moved to the newly built church in a hamlet in 1841.
The bells continued to be rung for royal and civic occasions but it took the activities of the Association to shake the band out of its torpor. In 1881 the eight bells were rehung by Warner in time for the fourth meeting of the Association at the cathedral in 1882, where the Association has met annually ever since. The Association report for 1886 said: “The chief event of the year has been the recent restoration of the two trebles to their places at St. Mary’s. The county town and centre of the Association now possesses a good ring of ten bells, and all that is needed is a band of local ringers to do them justice.” This latter rather caustic comment was perhaps unjustified because it was too much to expect a competent band to emerge within so short a time of rehanging and augmenting to ten bells. There were 13 members in the band in 1887 but only two appear to have been accomplished 8-bell ringers: J. Parmenter, and William Rowland, senior, whose grandfather had been a member of the original Society. However, progress was made and by 1913 several leading ringers had emerged, including William Parmenter junior, E.E. Parmenter, Tower Captain, and Henry F. Cooper.
12 Bells
In 1912 an order was placed with the John Warner bell foundry (Cripplegate, London) to recast the ring of ten and rehang them in a steel frame, but with the offer of two more bells it was decided to cast a ring of twelve (we have the only complete ring of 12 Warner bells in the country, in a rare fabricated steel frame.)
The new tenor (34½ cwt) was the gift of Mrs. Arkwright in memory of her father, William Tufnell, and the treble was presented by the Association to celebrate the church’s elevation to Cathedral status.
The old ring of ten was lowered in April 1913 and on 27th September 1913 the new ring of twelve was dedicated by the Bishop amidst a large congregation including nearly 300 bellringers. The ringers sat down to a meal in the Corn Exchange afterwards and a photo of this all-male gathering is in the ringing chamber.
A new Guild of Change Ringers was formed and under the master, Henry Cooper, rang for the enthronement of the first Diocesan Bishop on 23rd April 1914, and a few weeks later the first peal (over 5000 different changes of non-stop ringing) was rung on the 12 bells, with six local men in the band.
After the First World War ringers continued to make progress in the exercise under the Master, the late Leslie (Jack) Clark who was Tower Captain for 50 years up to 1977, and some of their successes are recorded on the peal boards which hang in the ringing chamber. One great achievement was a peal of Grandsire Caters by the Sunday service band on 26th April 1932.
A 13th bell
In 1947 the Taylor (Loughborough) bellfoundry cast a thirteenth bell, a ‘flat-sixth’, making it possible to ring a lighter octave in F when the number of ringers present, or their capabilities, make it desirable. This bell was the gift of Frederick J. French in memory of his father, Henry French, who had been a chorister and ringer at the Cathedral. The donor died before the bell was installed but generations of ringers since have been grateful for the versatility of ringing it has made possible.
In 2007 as part of the Cathedral’s Major Works appeal, new adjustable sound control shutters were installed to replace the ‘temporary’ polythene sheeting fitted some 30 years earlier. In 2009 the worn frictional parts (bearings, pulleys, clappers), were replaced or repaired to make all the bells easier to ring and put them in a good situation for the next 50 years.
At some point we had a set of Ellacombe Chimes but these were removed at the time of the reordering of the church. The hammers still adorn the belfry floor. The ropes and frame having been removed at the same time.
It’s important that we keep records of what happens to our bells so that in the future, other generations can understand the importance of the bells and the lengths that others went to to make them available to us. At the moment we are only ringing 2 bells, just C and I on a Sunday morning, until such time as current restrictions are lifted and we can welcome our band and friends back.
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.
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.
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 6th 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.
Bells, Bakes & Bettering Myself 