By Christopher Wright on 16-Mar-2022 - It’s a bit embarrassing when you get showered with inaccurate plaudits. The Kildwick MiniRingers have a popular party-piece which is ringing Plain Bob (usually doubles) “on the mat”. That mat is like a 2-row slice of a chessboard. White (or yellow for us) is handstroke and black (green) is back. You step anticlockwise around the […] Read more
By Christopher Wright on 11-Nov-2019 - These children continue to amaze me. The MiniRingers are an after-school club. We attract a tenth of the whole (small) school – and we have a waiting list. That’s not, actually, very hard to achieve. We arrange a variety of different bell-related activities centered around tune and change ringing on bells and chimes. We perform […] Read more
By Christopher Wright on 15-Jun-2019 - We’ve had a really good week at MiniRingers! We were due to start casting our bells on Thursday; a rather poor forecast meant that this needed to be postponed – water and molten metal are uncomfortable bed companions! So instead we spent a second session, learning to make the moulds. As one Mum said, “They […] Read more
By Christopher Wright on 10-May-2019 - 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 […] Read more
By Christopher Wright on 23-Jul-2018 - It is well known that we take a careful step-by-step approach with our learners. We introduce (as far as is possible) just one new skill at a time – and then practice before moving on to the next. That’s great – and it works. But life doesn’t always fit like that. Crises occur and decisions […] Read more
By Christopher Wright on 18-Jul-2018 - I’ve just done the theory test, following a Module 2C course on Saturday. (An excellent day, thank you, Graham!) Happily I passed – but I was somewhat distressed to score five “wrong” answers. Every one of them was one where I had had to think carefully, not about which answer was “right” – but about […] Read more
By Christopher Wright on 12-May-2018 - The Kildwick MiniRingers are not just about learning to ring bells. We do learn to ring bells – both tunes on handbells and (quite newly) starting handling lessons on our rather difficult tower bells. But that’s not all that we do. During the summer term, we set to and make bells too. Last year, we […] Read more
By Christopher Wright on 30-Mar-2018 - Our ringers were asked to pen a few lines about their first year in the Kildwick band. You’ve already seen (if not, why not?!) Theresa’s contribution. Here are some more: “Back in Harness! I’ve been retired (from ringing) for fifty years but was dug out to join the new Kildwick band. Everyone is mutually supportive, […] Read more
By Christopher Wright on 30-Mar-2018 - Theresa Clark was one of the completely new band at Kildwick. She didn’t come to the tower open day, arranged to attract a new band into a recently silenced tower but Gill did – and dragged her along. They both live, almost, in the churchyard! There is something very special and joyful about the sound […] Read more
By Christopher Wright on 02-Dec-2017 - The imminent arrival of the latest Couture Collection at Kildwick means more than simple sartorial splendour. A range of polos, hoodies and fleeces carry two closely-linked logos that symbolise the growing together of the young MiniRingers and the adult inhabitants of the tower. The “MaxiRingers” are making great progress and it is easy to take […] Read more