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!
