No real headlines – but we’ve had a couple of good days here in Yorkshire Tail-End Citadel at Kildwick.
Today was quite a one-off. Six weeks ago, I asked the “vicar” (she’s actually an “interim priest-in-charge”, but few are concerned about such niceties!) if there were any weddings to ring for this year and was told she’d have a look. On Tuesday, as a spin-off from another converstion with a Warden, it became clear that we were supposed to be ringing for a midday wedding. 69 hours to find a band!
Of our own wedding-proficient ringers there were two of us available. Another one swapped his hours to have time off, and 11-year-old Angus’ Mum said, “I’ll get him off school!” Four to go. The Western Branch and the Interrnet turned up trumps and we assembled with a full complement of eight. Some pretty good ringing – great for Angus! He also got to ring down in peal on eight for the first time. Great to note that he did better than others in the band!
But yesterday was just a bit special. Regular browsers may know of out junior school club, the MiniRingers – our current target is to ring the tower bells as well as we can for the Leavers’ Service at the end of term. Following invitation, all six Year 6 pupils have opted to join the adult band – at least for this term – and yesterday was their first real “grown-up” handling session. They’ve done a bit during club sessions and by the end of last night, all six were just about handling both strokes together with a bit of help.
Angus was a revelation – he spent his time teaching his peers on our Wombel look-alike. There were some interesting stay-benders to be heard but when he joined the adults to ring, I’ve never seen him handle a bell more proficiently than he did last night. Like Chris de Cordova, we’re putting in a band for our branch striking competition on Wednesday. With trepidation. Angus is one of the band and if we all do as well as we did last night, we’ll come in last. But not ignominiously last. I’ll let you know next week what happened…