We have been teaching people to ring bells at Northallerton in North Yorkshire for many years, long before the Learn to Ring scheme came along. In fact, my husband, David, taught me to ring when we were both teenagers. However, I decided to use LtR for new learners when I read that the Birmingham School of Ringing felt that a structured approach helped retention.

Northallerton Church

Recently we have been lucky enough to attract lots of new learners, most of them what I would describe as middle-aged, but one has brought her teenage daughter along. We also have a couple of 9 year olds, one of whom came to us through the ART website. One of our learners is the oldest person I have ever taught to ring – he was 76 when he started but then he told me one Monday evening: “I’ll be worse tonight because I am a year older”.

He has successfully completed Level 1, but Level 2 will take a long time to achieve.

As you can imagine, all of this takes a lot of effort so on a typical Monday evening we are at the church before 6pm and often stay until 9pm, with learners coming for as long as they can stay during this time. Handling is between 6 & 7pm,  with some rounds and call changes for early arrivals. Then the emphasis changes to simple skill building exercises and change ringing on 5 or 6 bells and there never seems to be enough time to cover everything.

Practice night at Northallerton

We are starting the weekly Thursday practice at 6:30 instead of 7, to fit in extra time for our new ringers. A highlight was at the main practice last Thursday when we rang decent rounds with an experienced ringer leading and 5 learners ringing the other bells. Some of our new recruits are joining us on a Sunday evening for service ringing, but with so many of them it is often difficult to give everybody the attention they deserve, even with three practices a week! They act as a support group for each other, which is great, but it means that pushing on to Level 2 is a slow process.

David is also teaching some people from a tower in County Durham, Barton, where they plan to augment from 4 to 6 bells this year. This is on a Friday evening, which leaves an occasional Wednesday as our only free evening in the week! Still, it keeps us out of mischief …