Belfry Gossip

Wellingborough Branch – 3^rd: The annual Peterborough Diocesan Guild of Church Bell Ringers 8 bell competition for Branches from around the Diocese was held at Desborough parish church during September. The Peterborough Diocese is divided into ten territorial bell ringing Branches stretching from the Rutland Branch in the north of the Diocese to the Culworth Branch in the southwest. Not all the Branches manage to mobilise a team for the competition, but the Wellingborough Branch never fails. The winner’s trophy is a delightfully encased model of a bell, which from time to time, our Branch has won – but not this time. As usual the judges position themselves out of sight but where the bells are clearly audible. After a short practice piece, which each team is allowed to familiarise themselves with the bells, a test piece comprising of so many changes is rung. This can be any method using eight bells. Desborough has just spent a lot of money rehanging their bells and many ringers were eager to test them out. Kettering stole pole position; Towcester was placed second with the Wellingborough Branch in 3^rd position. The majority of the Wellingborough team came from St. Mary’s.

The Marchbank Family: It seems a long time since we said our "farewells" to Simon, Claire, Huw and Owain. They arrived at St. Mary’s several months before work started on the new upstairs ringing chamber, with Simon showing much interest in its construction. He was the first non-ringer from the congregation to climb the dusty new floor covered, at that time, in stone debris and paid regular visits as the work progressed. Both Huw and Owain started to learn to ring but Huw gave up very quickly, while Owain was making quite a proficient young ringer. However he lost his confidence and decided to stick to Friday Night Live. We rang a farewell quarter peal of Grandsire Triples on the evening of their farewell service and presented the family with a commemorative certificate. We all wish them well in their new sphere of life.

Holidays: With so many retired people ringing at St. Mary’s, holidays are taken at differing times and this affects our Sunday evening quarter peals. There are times when we find it difficult to ring all eight bells, particularly on Sundays. We will continue with our Sunday evening quarter peals as long as possible.

Hence New Recruits: We have taken on a new recruit who is doing extremely well. It is very difficult recruiting youngsters, for various reasons. The ones who learn and often show more enthusiasm, tend to come from families already involved in campanology. Occasionally they bring friends who learn and often progress well together. Having reached Higher Education level, many move onto universities. Fortunately many of these institutions have Ringing Societies and the keen undergraduates progress quite rapidly.

Remembrance Sunday: Alan will be away in November. He fixes the muffles to the bells for the half muffled ringing on Remembrance Sunday. This is quite a skilled task and it may be that for 2006, we shall be without muffled ringing on that particular Sunday.

Visiting Ringers: From time to time, many churches with rings of bells welcome visiting ringers. They may turn up unannounced on either practice nights or even on Sundays. There are various ways of finding out when individual towers will be ringing. Other visitors come with parties of ringers on organised outings. These are planned months ahead. As we embarked on our day’s outing earlier in the year, so other ringers tour the country on similar outings. With so many ringers of retirement age, groups of them often organise mid-week outings, ringing at one tower in the morning followed with a pub lunch and visit another tower in the afternoon – what could be better! We welcomed two such groups in September, one from the Leighton Buzzard area and the second from the Huntingdon area.

Tintinnabulum
www.stmarysringers.org.uk

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