September 2012

Up here in the tower we are thrilled to bits with our newly  refurbished clappers; well actually we are thrilled with the difference they have made.  The bells sound more mellow, much sharper yet with a lovely “hum”.  They are also “swinging” more smoothly which is making handling them easier.  Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible – whether it be practical or financial – we are extremely grateful, let alone lucky, to have such support.

                                                                          Bellringer at work! 

The bell ringers did the recommended works up in the bell chamber themselves – we painted preservative on all the wooden wheels and, where needed, replaced all rusty screws, split pins and twiddle pins. We also followed the useful axiom ‘If it moves it should moves freely and if it doesn’t move it should be fixed firmly’ and loosened and tightened various bits and pieces appropriately!

The new clappers came back two weeks after having  been sent off and we spent, (I use the term “we” loosely actually as really it was 4 male ringers!), a day refitting the clappers. This is a much fiddlier job than you would imagine. It isn’t just a case of putting them in; you have to measure the distance from the central ball of the clapper to each side of the bell, constantly adjusting the fixings until the distance to each side is identical.  

 

                                                       Don't they look smart!

The first Sunday that the clapperswere away for repair Martin and Matthew had a go at ringing the Ellacombeapparatus which we still have installed. 

                                                            The Ellacombe Apparatus at Swanage

An Ellacombe apparatus is a method for performing ringing requiring only one person. Unlike the traditional method, where the bells are spun 360 degrees to sound them and one person is needed for each bell, the bells are kept static and a hammer is struck against the inside of the bell. Each hammer is connected by a rope to a fixed frame in the bell-ringing room shown above. The ropes are taut, and pulling one of the ropes towards the ‘ringer’ will strike the hammer against the bell.

The system was devised by Reverend Henry Thomas Ellacombe of Gloucestershire, who first had such a system installed in Bitton in 1821. It is believed he created the system to make bell-ringers redundant, so churches did not have to tolerate the behaviour of unruly bell-ringers just so they could have their bells expertly rung. 

As if we would be unruly!

August 2012

July was an extraordinarily busy month up here in the Tower;  five Sundays, two weddings, a Parish Fete, an Olympic Torch relay and the opening of  the Olympic Games all of which needed ringing for!  This was, without doubt, the busiest month I have known since I started ringing.

 At the Parish Fete we were asked to follow the same format as last year i.e. we rang for 15 minutes up the Fete opening time and then, having shut the shutters to deaden the noise, had the tower open for an hour.  However actually up in the tower we decided this year and to ring more for the visitors to watch and shorten the time each person had “having a go”.  This seemed to go down very well and we even got some rounds of applause!  One or two people expressed an interest in learning to ring so I am hoping we can start teaching some new recruits in the autumn.  Overall we managed to raise nearly £25 which meant that we had over 50 people come and visit us.

In the true tradition of  “ringing for events of national importance” six of us gathered up in the belfry on Friday 13^th July at 11.45am to ring a quarter peal for the Olympic Torch relay. Unfortunately we were unable to ring all 8 bells due to work, school and road closures!  However we rang a very nice quarter of Plain Bob Doubles finishing at 12.30;  leaving us just enough time to run up the road, grab a pint from the Black Swan, and watch the torch go past.

Friday 27^th July again saw a gathering of ringers up in the belfry, this time to ring for the Opening of the London 2012 Olympic Games.   We rang a quarter peal of Grandsire Triples starting just after 6pm leaving us plenty of time to get home and eat before settling down to watch the Opening Ceremony.   

And what a games it was!  I loved every single minute of the next 16 days!

July 2012

There’s bad news and there’s good news this month.   It is generally recommended that belfries have an “MOT” every three years or so.  We hadn’t had one at Swanage for over five years so we felt it prudent to have one done this year.   If you were regularly swinging a ton of metal over your head you would agree!  We were very fortunate in getting a representative from the Central Council of ChurchBellringers to come and do this inspection for us, and free of charge. 

Problems were identified with the wheels (on which the  ropes which swing the bells are mounted) which were all dry and need treatment with a wood preserver.  The bellframe itself wasn’t too bad; just some signs of rusting expansion and it was recommended that the bellframe is properly cleaned down and repainted.  All the work needed inside the belfry is going to be done by the bell ringers themselves. 

In general the actual bells were found to be in good condition, with only moderate wear on their soundbows where the clappers strikes, and need no further work  at present.  This was not the case with the clappers, all eight have different varying problems; in particular the clapper bushes are worn in bells 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8.   Worn out clappers bushing and flattened clapper balls do much to cause ringers to complain about the running order and sound of the bells

In short, all the clappers need work on them:  They all need to be stripped down, checked for cracks and to have the balls built up with suitable weld and then ground back to shape.  All the worn out bushes need to be replaced, all the clapper joint pins need replacing and the locking pins need to be restored.   This will return then all the good working order and will reduce the impact points where they strike the bells.

We are very lucky that the Church has agreed to us having this essential work done.  We are removing the clappers after ringing for Evensong on Sunday 5^th August and they are then being taken to a foundry at Loughborough and will be away for a couple of weeks. 

So, no ringing at Swanage I’m afraid from Monday 6^th August until, hopefully, the weekend of 25^th/26^th August though it might be the first weekend in September.

And the good news?  I get a couple of weeks off!

June 2012

Having just been on holiday I think we sometimes fail to realise just how lucky we are at Swanage to have such a lovely peal of bells, let alone such a nice peal of 8.   Our holiday started off in Devon, on the Hartland peninsular where there is just one church, at Stoke, covering the whole peninsular. It is an extraordinary church with the second highest spire in Devon and you can see it for miles around.  It has a peal of 6 bells.  We had hoped to ring them but due to extra ringing over Jubilee and weddings they had decided to cancel their practice the week we were there.   We then went to the Isles of Scilly.  Now they didn’t have a peal of bells at all until 2009.  The six churches on the islands all only had one bell until the good folk of St Mary’s took action and mounted a very impressive fund raising campaign which resulted in them getting a peal of 8 bells by 2009.  Apparently the pitch and weight of the bells was set to try and maximise the ability of them being heard by all the “off” islands – Tresco, Bryher etc - some considerable distances!  Sadly we didn’t get to hear them ring – I imagine the noise in the churchyard must be very loud!

For  some unfathomable reason, ringing church bells where you haven’t rung before is called “grabbing”.   Recently I ‘grabbed’ Stratton in Dorset – another interesting tower where you can literally hear the bats in the belfry.  Goodness knows what the ringing does to their hearing but I was glad I couldn’t hear them whilst actually ringing!  Later this month I’m off to grab Brownsea Island which I’m looking forward to immensely.

 The Parish Fete is on 21^st July. We will be ringing for 15 minutes before the opening of the Fete at 12 noon and then afterwards the tower will be open for an hour until 1pm. You are all very welcome to come and watch us ring, or maybe even have a go yourself. 

Why don’t you come and grab Swanage?!

May 2012

10 without loss! Cricket? No, quarter peal ringing! From Ash Wednesday on 22nd February until 15th April we got every quarter peal we rang which has got to be some sort of record! The methods rung were varied in difficulty; though the highlights were Eddie Dicken scoring his first quarter as a conductor and Mike Jenkins getting his first quarter of triples (ie on 8 bells. Another one saw Aidan Wright ringing the treble very nicely to a quarter of Middlesex Bob Triples after an absence from the tower of 4 years. He rung like he’d never been away! Probably appropriately the tenth quarter in the run was to mark the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic! We sank the following week!

If you look at our website, and navigate to the ‘quarter peal’ page (http://www.swanagebellringing.sdgr.org.uk/page16.htm), you will see that with each quarter peal entry there is a ‘footnote’. If its Sunday this always starts “Rung for Evensong” but more often than not we dedicate the quarter to something or someone e.g. the quarter on 1st April was also rung to celebrate the marriage of my daughter which had taken place the day before. Have a look – you will get an insight into what the ringers regard as special events. Prize for the person who can tell me the footnote for the quarter peal on 12th January 2012!

June and July are going to be busy months ringing wise. We have the Diamond Jubilee at the beginning of June and we are trying to learn a method called “Diamond Jubilee Triples” to ring specifically to commemorate this event. July of course is the Olympics. The torch relay comes to Swanage on Friday 13th July and, in the true tradition of church bells being rung to mark events of National importance, we will be ringing! We are aiming to start ringing at 12.26 pm when the flame leaves Swanage Middle School and to continue ringing until about 1.15 when, hopefully, the flame will have passed the church on its way up the High Street.

We also intend to ring on Friday 27th July, the opening day of the London Olympic Games. You may, or may not, have read in the press about Turner Prize-winning artist and musician Martin Creed having written a work in which “at 8am all the bells in the country are to be rung as quickly and as loudly as possible for three minutes”. In my view this just isn’t possible – apart from upsetting verger Chris chiming for the morning service - church bells just can’t be rung “as quickly and as loudly” any faster and louder than we usually ring them! We shall ring later on in the day but not sure exactly when yet.

February/March 2012

They’ve arrived! Our new bell ropes! Despite being told the lead time was 9 months they eventually arrived in January a full 14 months after we placed the order. It is wonderful to have the new ropes, thank you so much. The only down side is the red fluff on the floor from the new sallies which means I’m having to get ‘Henry’ out more often.

I told you last month that we were attempting a peal to celebrate John’s installation as a Canon. Unfortunately they didn’t get it as one of the ringers was taken ill 2 hours in and had to stop. The band is going to attempt it again on March 3rd, so fingers crossed. We did get the quarter peal on the day itself though which was pleasing.

When this edition of Church Alive! comes out it will nearly be “Leap Day”. Christian Aid has organised this fund raising event where you pay to, and get sponsorship for, abseiling down the side of the tower. It’s advertised as ‘take a leap of faith by abseiling 100 feet down St Mary’s Church”. Now I’m all for that; but me? abseil? Sorry, can’t do it! However the Vice Tower Captain, Matthew Pike is going to, as well as John Wood. Good Luck both of you, I’ll be right behind you…….on the ground

We had an interesting practice the other night when one of the ringers “broke a stay”. Now to explain what this means we are going to have to get a little bit technical! Below is a picture of a model bell in the ‘up’ position with a diagram next to it showing the various parts.




I’ll only tell you about the stay and slider this month as these are the parts my story relates too.

The Stay is a piece of wood, usually made of ash, bolted onto the headstock of the bell. When the bell is ‘standing’ in the upright position the stay holds it in place by resting against another piece of wood called a slider. One end of the stay bolts into the headstock and the other engages with the slider as the bell approaches the balance point. The slider, as the name suggests, slides back and forth as it is pushed by the stay across a track between two end stops on the lower part of the frame.
The stay needs to be sturdy enough to support the bell. If the bell is mishandled and it violently comes to rest the stay is designed to break and protect the bell, which could otherwise crack across its crown.
So, can you work out what happens when a stay gets broken? That’s right, you cannot stand the bell so if you don’t hold it in the up position by the rope then the bell would simply rotate right round! On the practice night in question the stay was broken within the first 10 minutes of our practice. For the entire evening one of our experienced ringers had to stand balancing the bell up by the rope between all the pieces of ringing. – very tedious!

January 2012

Christmas was a very busy time for us like everyone else, with three services to ring for on Christmas Eve as well as Christmas Day morning. As is normal at this time of year some bellringers were away visiting family for the festive period whereas others had family staying with them. This always makes it difficult to get enough ringers for each service, though somehow we always manage it, and this year was no exception with all 8 bells being rung for each service. I had family staying with me and the multitasking on Christmas Eve of ringing three times, cooking a ham joint, cooking dinner, eating and washing up was interesting to say the least! One of my personal Christmas highlights was James Buckle playing the trombone at the Midnight Service accompanied by Simon on the organ. I thought it one of the most beautiful pieces of music I’ve heard in a long time.

Up here in the Tower we were really delighted to hear John’s news that he is to be installed as a non-residentiary canon of Salisbury cathedral. How exciting and well deserved is that? I wasn’t actually sure how one is supposed to refer to such an event……. “canonisation” is clearly incorrect, although maybe appropriate on occasion! And “installation” to me sounded like a long awaited new boiler being installed. However I am informed that it is, indeed, “installation” is as much as John is put “in a stall”.

After I finish writing this article I am setting off to ring a Quarter Peal to coincide with the Evensong Service at Salisbury during which John’s installation as Canon takes place. We felt it would be nice for the bells of St Mary’s to be ringing out whilst the service was taking place. On Saturday we (well not me personally as it way beyond my ability!) are attempting to ring a Peal in celebration of the event too. Wish us luck!

Postscript: We didn't get the peal as one of the ringers was taken ill about 2 hours in. Re-attempt taking place beginning of March