Hey, guess what! We rang the bells on Easter Sunday at St Martin of Tours, Fiddington. My wife and I joined the tower captain and we rang three bells, 1,3 & 5. After a careful risk assessment, of course, and a deep clean of the belfry, and sanitising and masking and the ropes removed and washed. We waited for the pigs to fly past before pulling off.
Seriously, it was great even to ring three blind mice instead of incompetent attempts at or in the Ringing Room which to me is an abomination and nothing like the real thing. Maybe it isn’t meant to be. Thoughts turn towards the time when ringing generally can resume. When, hopefully soon, we can ring again what will normal ringing be like?
In the recent years BC (before Covid) we could not ring the bells at my home tower, Holford. Bells in good condition, but local ringers not so. A few years ago we had nine youngsters in the tower learning to ring. All of them got to rounds
and call changes at least and some were clearly going to make method ringers. But they have all gone their ways now. University, or abroad with parents, or careers in the forces and so on. If we recruited a new band of young learners
now the youngsters would all be in their sixties. Such is life!
Yet ringing will be possible again, probably quite soon. It seems to me that there is a responsibility on us all not just to come back to ring but to recruit new ringers and to re-enthuse and reinvigorate ringing as a skill and a service. After all,
ringing is an important part of worship and a powerful Missional activity.
Bouncing back better in the belfry will need a determination to find, encourage, nurture and teach a whole new generation of ringers. It is a Mission of faith as much as anything else. As Saint Matthew’s Gospel tells us, (chapter 28, v. 19) the
Risen Jesus’s exhortation was to “Go therefore and make disciples of all Nations.” For disciples, read “Ringers”!
Stephen Campbell