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.