Belfry Gossip
A School Visit:
On the Thursday before Christmas, we welcomed a group of students and staff from the Bishop Ramsey School in Ruislip, Greater London. The students, virtually all girls, were clad in Father Christmas hats and appeared to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. St. Mary’s was their first port of call of the day, but the heavy morning M25 traffic slightly delayed their minibus. The visit was well timed and the bells rang out to welcome the congregation to the Thursday morning communion service. Bishop Ramsey School is an over-subscribed Church of England 11 – 18 year old’s mixed comprehensive school with 1200 students, nearly 300 of whom are in the 6th form and 150 staff.
Christmas Ringing: With Christmas Day falling on a Sunday, it seemed strange to be ringing on three consecutive days. The Friday evening practice, which was well attended, was followed by a quarter peal on Christmas Eve and the two ringing slots on Christmas morning. Some churches have their bells rung prior to their midnight mass, but since we started our Christmas Eve ringing, we have traditionally started at 7pm. Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning ringing at St. Mary’s, goes back to the 1960’s and not one Christmas has been missed – and some of our present ringers have been involved since then!
Less than 30 years ago, two early morning communion services were held on Christmas morning, at 7 and 8am. both of which were well attended. The ringers rang at 6 30am., stayed for the service, rang for the 8am. service, hot-footed it home for a well-earned fry-up and back to ring at 10am. for the Family Service. This year we managed six ringers for 7 30am – and we’re getting older!! Could this have been the last early Christmas morning ring? An item for our AGM!
New Year Ringing: The same pattern developed for the New Year period. We held our usual Friday evening practice, when we had well over a dozen ringers, probably pleased to escape from turkey, presents and relatives. A successful quarter peal of Rutland Surprise Major was rung the following day on New Year’s Eve, followed by Sunday Service ringing on New Year’s Day – but no evening quarter peal.
AGM: The ringing chamber decorations are down and packed away for another year. Our minds now turn to our AGM. on Friday 13th January. Not all towers or church organisations hold such meetings but it affords us an opportunity to reflect on our past year’s ringing, outings, activities and weaknesses and to plan for the year ahead. A report on our meeting will be included in March’s edition of Belfry Gossip. There may even be a new Tintinnabulum!
Flies on the Carpet: For the past few months, a carpet covered in black insects greets us as we enter the ringing chamber. For some reason we attract flies from above who seem to favour the relative warmth of the ringing chamber than the winter temperature among the bells. The light from the west window draws them and then they flop in a drunken stupor onto our carpet – still relatively new. So out comes the hoover and all are sucked up rather than trodden into the carpet.
A Remarkable Fact: Tintinnabulum was recently given a newspaper article stating quite an interesting and remarkable fact. Whenever our Queen hears the bells of Westminster Abbey, which she does at least once a year after the State Opening of Parliament, she is hearing at least two bells that rang out for Elizabeth 1st. The Whitechapel Bell Foundry, still operating in London, hung them there in 1583 and they have been rung ever since. I bet they can tell a tale.
Tintinnabulum
www.stmarysringers.org.uk
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