For over sixteen years, I’ve been writing a monthly column for two local community magazines, the Tetbury Advertiser and the Hawkesbury Parish News. Around the middle of each month, I’d down tools to dash off 500 words for each paper – a different article for each of them – to meet their deadlines. I’ve loved every minute of it – even when it meant burning the midnight oil to fit it into my busy schedule. But the time has come to step down to allow more time for other projects.
Living in a small Cotswold village with a lively community provides ideas and inspiration for writing my cosy mystery novels. I’ve served on many committees, belonged to different organisations, and taken part in lots of activities since I moved here over thirty years ago.
One of my favourite activities here is ringing the church bells, which were installed in our parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Hawkesbury in 2021. As I soon discovered, in the English tradition of circle-mounted church bells, there’s much more to church bell-ringing than one might think. Full-circle ringing is not just a question of pulling the end of a rope at random.
I soon became hooked, and I’m now evangelical about this ancient craft. In my column for the September issue of the Hawkesbury Parish News, written during a month with a busy ringing schedule, I wrote the following piece to encourage others.
Writing this column in between two weddings and VJ80 Day, all three of which events involved bell ringing at our parish church, I’d like to share some of the surprising benefits of being a bell ringer. You never know, my revelations might persuade you to give it a try yourself.
1. Exercise
The slow, steady pulling of the bell rope (sally) against the resistance of a bell’s weight provides a gentle but significant workout in manageable bursts. Time and again, ringers arrive at the tower saying, ‘Not sure I can ring tonight, I’ve put my back out’ – only to skip down the tower stairs afterwards, fully restored.
2. Teamwork
While each person is responsible for only one bell, we work as a band led by a conductor, just like any other group of musicians – only our instruments are bigger than everyone else’s.
3. Belonging
The mental health benefits of feeling part of a community are well known. Bell ringing creates a great sense of camaraderie, not only in one’s home tower, but at other churches. Travelling beyond the parish, bell ringers are assured of a warm welcome in any other tower.
4. The Best View
Because we ring in an open-sided chamber rather than on an enclosed platform, we have the best view in the house. It’s especially enjoyable at weddings, watching from above as the bridal party processes.
5. Historical Role
We play a part in history, not only on a local level at parishioners’ christenings, weddings and funerals, although that’s also an honour. It has been a memorable privilege to ring to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth, the proclamation of the King, his coronation, VE80 and VJ80. It’s especially exciting when we know we’re ringing simultaneously with ringers nationwide, even though we can neither hear nor see them.
6. Tradition
We’re keeping an ancient craft alive. I learned to ring to honour the memory of my great-grandfather, a distinguished ringer of complex peals of 12 bells long before I was born. I may never be able to ring to his standard, but that feeling of following in his footsteps and passing ringing on to future generations is priceless.
New bell ringers are always welcome at St Mary’s. No experience is necessary, and free training will be given. Most ringers aren’t religious, and you won’t be expected to stay for church services or to commit to specific ringing events. So if you fancy trying your hand at bell ringing this autumn, contact Colin Dixon, St Mary’s Tower Captain, or join us at St Mary’s at practice nights, 6.30-8pm every Wednesday. All ages welcome – you just need to be tall enough to reach the ropes.
PS Just thought of bonus point 7 – as the nights draw in and temperatures dip, it’s worth knowing that ringing church bells will warm you up in winter!
If you’d rather read about bell ringing than ring in real life, try my cosy mystery novel, Death at the Village Chess Club, where the denouement takes place at the bell tower!
PPS Our parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Hawkesbury, will be the setting for the next Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival event on Saturday 27th September, with a fabulous day of talks, readings and panel discussions on the theme of “Strength of Character“. For more information and to book your tickets now, visit hulitfest.com. I’d love to see you there!
Brideshead Revisited: The Sacred and Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder by Evelyn Waugh
Usually, I prefer to read the original book before watching a film or TV series of it, but in the case of Evelyn Waugh’s heartrending Brideshead Revisited, I first experienced it as the very faithful BBC TV dramatisation in the 1980s, starring Jeremy Irons as the narrator, Charles Flyte. Waugh has since become one of my favourite authors, and I’ve read many of his books many times.
Needing something soothing to listen to in the car on long journeys, I downloaded the Audible edition of Brideshead Revisited, narrated by Jeremy irons. It’s a flawless rendition, with Irons rendering the voices of the many characters, male and female, with a multitude of accents.
I was instantly transported into the heady world of the book, and long drives flew by – even though I’m not usually very good at listening to fiction on audio, able to concentrate better on non-fiction.
This audiobook was a hard act to follow, but I’m now revisiting another Waugh favourite, the darkly comic novel Scoop, narrated equally brilliantly by Simon Cadell.
(Please note: This post replaces an earlier version that was somehow jumbled in the transmission – I’m hoping it will read in the right order this time!)
After emerging from a frantic period of activity, I’m just trying to catch up with myself, and have realized to my horror that I haven’t posted on my blog here since 8th April. So today I’ve decided to do a bit of catching up before it all gets completely out of hand.
If it weren’t for my aversion to honey, I’d believe that in a former life I must have been a bear. As soon as the clocks go back in the autumn, I sleep a little longer each night, peaking at ten hours in midwinter. I hate the short days and long nights of winter.
Isn’t it odd how snippets of song lyrics lurk in our memories decades after we learned them? I may not be able to remember where I parked my car at Yate Shopping Centre, but I’m still word perfect on songs I learned at primary school.
So, when my author friend Stefania Hartley told me about Ride Like a Gaucho, Tetbury young farmer Sophia Ashe’s memoir of her gap year in Argentina, I was transported not to South America, but to my Year 3 classroom in a Terrapin hut of Days Lane Primary School, Sidcup, and our weekly Singing Together lesson. In my head I immediately started singing:
“See the gaucho, ride the pampas, Ride the pampas, green and wide…”
Singing Together was a weekly BBC radio programme for schools, broadcast nationwide from 1939 until 2004. In the days before audio streaming and BBC Sounds, all the schools taking part had to tune in to the live broadcast. We sang along with the show’s hosts and their backing choir, and sometimes we played our recorders too.
There was something very exciting about knowing we were singing the same songs at the same time as thousands of children all over the country.
Each term we learned a mix of folk songs from around the world, set down in printed booklets, which the schools had to buy. The songs ranged from lilting melodies to rousing calypsos to nonsense songs. We thought it great fun, not realising the many educational benefits we were absorbing in the process: learning to read music, improving our literacy skills, working as a team, and building our awareness of other cultures. Gaucho! Pampas! Such exotic words!
Singing Together was also very levelling. We weren’t marked or judged on their performance, and the subject didn’t feature in our school report. We simply enjoyed ourselves.
In those days we sat in neat rows at old-fashioned single wooden desks with lift-up lids. For Singing Together, we had to move our desks together in pairs, because there were only enough booklets for one between two. At the end of term, we were allowed to buy the booklets for sixpence each, on a first-come, first-served basis. Throughout primary school, I went to my grandma’s for school dinners. I remember cadging sixpence off her at the end of each term and running back to school as soon as we’d finished eating to secure my copy. The songs we learned are still very special to me.
Sadly, I don’t still have my copies of those booklets – but you can click here to see the BBC’s gallery of Singing Together booklet covers.
It’s unfortunate that few of the live radio programmes were recorded, and almost all have been lost. Whether or not you remember taking part in Singing Together, you might enjoy listening to a wonderful radio documentary by Jarvis Cocker, which you can catch on BBC Sounds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04stc6c
I bet you can’t listen without joining in at some point! If the programme makes you hanker after a grown-up equivalent of Singing Together, try joining your local choir (Hawkesbury Choir, in my case) – it ticks all the same boxes for me!
This article first appeared in the May 2024 edition of the Hawkesbury Parish News
