Here
we are in April and again, this year, we will be ringing a quarter peal on
Tuesday 23rd April. Why? Because it is St George’s Day.
Back
in 2009 a campaign was started to encourage the celebration of St George’s Day
by ringing out bells from as many English church towers as possible. The idea was to start ringing at an agreed time on 23rd
April - 6pm in the evening - in a collective act of celebration of
England, St George and change-ringing.
The Swanage bell ringers felt that this was a
campaign worth backing and we have rung a quarter peal on St George’s Day every
year since, and including, 2009.
Bell ringing is universally identified as the quintessential “Sound of England”. It announces not only our regular church services but Christian feast days and for generations has played an integral part in the Nation's pageantry at times of sadness and joy; notably Coronations, Royal Weddings and momentous events such as the end of the two World Wars.
Around the world there are approximately 7,100 towers with bells hung for change ringing of which 6,673 are in England. Quintessentially English? Definitely! In case you are interested the distribution is as follows:
• England 6,673 New Zealand 9
• Wales 226 South Africa 8
• Scotland 20
Africa 3
• Ireland 37 Windward Islands 2
• Channel
Islands 10
India 1
• Isle
of Man 2 Netherlands 1
• Australia 55 Pakistan 1
• USA 44
Spain 1
• Canada 9
As it happens we have recently had a visiting band from the USA and they told me that most of the towers in the USA are in New England, which makes sense!
The distribution, and bells, of the other countries are very interesting. No room to go into detail this month but it will form the basis of next month’s “View from the Tower”
Finally I just want to say “Hello” to the Tuesday Group who very kindly invited us to go and talk to them about bellringing at their March meeting. What a lovely evening we had; thank you all for being so welcoming and appreciative of our efforts to convey what bellringing is and what it means to us.
