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125 years of Ranmoor church and ringing
- The last 25 years
“All Hold, Here’s The Treble, She’s Going, She’s Gone.”
And so begins another piece of
ringing at Ranmoor, as it has done a score of times each week for most
of our
125 years. The people change as time passes; while the circle of
concentration,
the rhythmic pulling of the sally and the backstroke continue across
the years.
Of our current band of 21 members, three have been with us for all the
last
quarter century, while many others have joined and left; Christmas and
Easter
often bringing old friends from the USA, from Winchester and St Alban’s
Cathedral and elsewhere.
“Go, Grandsire Triples”
- starts the changes: and if nobody makes a serious mistake, five
thousand pulls
and three hours later, the eight ringers can celebrate their joint
success, and
add one more peal
to the 69 peals of
our first century, and another fifty in the last 25 years. Of these,
our local
band has dedicated its achievements to: the 100
years since rededication of the
church, the restoration of the
bells, and, twice, for the birth of children to
band members.
It’s not always Grandsire Triples, of course: that’s just one of many methods
that we practice on
Tuesdays and ring for service on Sundays: lots of pieces last just five
or ten
minutes; and quarter
peals, 45 minutes
ringing, are attempted about once a
month. These, too, sometimes mark notable events: Michael Jarratt’s leaving,
David Knight’s
induction, Bridget’s
ordination, Alison
Bennett’s
birth, Gerald Littlewood’s
funeral, …
“Pull her straight, not hard; hands together”
… and only nine years later, Alison joined us as a member of our band.
We are always keen to recruit
new ringers, training them to have confidence to take control of any
bell,
including the sixteen hundredweight of the tenor, the largest bell; and
then to
join us regularly at practice and service ringing. It takes some time
to appreciate our rewarding and addictive
pastime, but once hooked …
“Pass the treble in two-three”
… there are other towers
to visit, bells to ring, dinners to attend, friends to meet. Outings have headed
to all directions and we have visited towers from Warwickshire to
Cleveland;
Lancashire to Lincolnshire: we remember the remote towers where the
bells are
seldom heard, the faded grandeur of the Pugin interior of Hoar Cross,
the
splendour of Boston Stump.
“Call her In and Out of the Hunt, twice repeated”
The
original eight bells were installed in 1877, survived the church fire, and were
augmented to the current ten
in 1934. By the early 1990s each clapper had
sounded each bell maybe ten million times: the PCC approved a programme
of refurbishment,
led by the ringers, who undertook the dismantling and reassembly
in three stages over eighteen months, with the Loughborough bellfoundry
doing
the specialist work. Daunting though it was to pass the bells’
headstocks
through the trap door in the ringing chamber floor to the ground below,
newspaper photographs of the time, now displayed in the ringing
chamber, show
the equipment for hauling up the new bells in 1934; glance up as you
pass
through the church porch to appreciate the drop.
We
have experience and youth, understanding and enthusiasm, bells
hopefully good
for another fifty years before more major work, effective sound control
to help
our close neighbours: with some more volunteers young and old we look
with
confidence to the next 125 years.
“That is all… Stand”
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