My mentor, Rob Perry and I had rung for some years at Marksbury, near Bath, but out of the blue one day all ringing was stopped there due to frame movement causing cracking of the tower.
To suddenly have our bells pronounced ‘unringable’ and to have no ‘home’ tower is a really strange feeling. We visited other local practices but really wanted to keep our own band together. A nearby tower correspondent heard of our plight and offered his tower for practices. (His elderly band had all given up ringing so the bells weren’t being used.) He also asked if we’d be prepared to teach a couple of villagers who had shown interest. Well we didn’t need asking twice and things grew from there. We taught some of the villagers, three students from nearby Universities and then, after a few practice sessions, word seemed to spread around and we often had a tower full of people who were keen to learn or who had brought friends or visitors to watch or have a try or who wanted to look at the bells. Of course not everyone took up the long term challenge but my view is that you never know what these things lead to in the future, so we are always happy to show people the ropes (so to speak!) For instance, one lady who just expressed an interest one day has recently rung her first peal with us!
Having heard about our teaching sessions, one of our ringers said that her twin daughters might like to try so they arrived one evening along with their younger sister who originally just came to watch but then wanted to have a ring herself too. We also had an ex-ringer’s grandson, a keen little lad who comes from a long line of ringers in the family, along with his cousin and his dad! The children then spread the word as they were really enjoying it and brought two more friends along until now amazingly we have seven youngsters. Four of them have now passed LtR 1 & 2 and are starting to plain hunt. The younger three are working hard to catch them up.
Things were getting very hectic at one time because a ground floor ring does get ‘sightseers’ and we had lots of people looking in at us on Sunday mornings with an interest in what we were doing, especially as we were ringing at a tower that had stopped Sunday ringing many years before due to lack of members. We do get lots of interest and questions asked about the ringing and our next recruit was a churchwarden who picked things up really quickly.
New Ringers at Newton St Loe and Corston
Rob and I are really enjoying the whole teaching and PR experience and we feel very privileged to have so many keen learners and especially the children who we hope will carry the art on into the next generation. We are getting a real ‘buzz’ from watching everyone progress. We had taught people before but found huge benefit from attending the ART Training Scheme courses and gaining our accreditations. We now have our own tower again as the previous correspondent moved away from the area and asked us to take over completely, so things are definitely looking up!