h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have been a Ringer for 12 years and must say that it is a great
pastime and a way to make wonderful friends. You are welcome
as a Ringer in any Tower in the U.K.
Although it takes a while to master the skill of ringing a church bell and to ring rounds and call changes, it does not require strength or knowledge of maths ! If you were thinking of giving it a go I would say hesitate no longer. You can learn at any age and
you will be welcomed with open arms at your local Tower.

And not just in the UK. Bellringing is mainly a UK thing, but there are ringable bells elsewhere in the world (try former colonies...) As in the UK visitors are usually given a very warm welcome & it can be a great way to meet local people during a holiday or trip abroad. My parents (also ringers)were given a particulary warm welcome when they visited Washington DC.

MAybe someone's already mentioned this but ringing does play a major part in the plot of Dorothy L Sayers' "The Nine Tailors". Well worth a read.

I've been learning to ring bells for 3 years now. It is great fun and all of the ringers at my church are a really friendly and supportive bunch.
I strongly recommend ringing to anyone out there who's interested. It is hard work and it can be confusing at first and you can go for weeks and weeks and not seem to get any better but you do feel a great sense of achievement when you succeed.
I have a couple of snapped stays on my record, are there any other stay-snapping ringers out there?!!!!

I've been learning to ring bells for 3 years now. It is great fun and all of the ringers at my church are a really friendly and supportive bunch.
I strongly recommend ringing to anyone out there who's interested. It is hard work and it can be confusing at first and you can go for weeks and weeks and not seem to get any better but you do feel a great sense of achievement when you succeed.
I have a couple of snapped stays on my record, are there any other stay-snapping ringers out there?!!!!

RulerOfTheUniverse

Not a stay-snapper (yet - touch wood), but I have had several ropes break on me!

I have been ringing for over ten years now and have thoroughly enjoyed it. In genrall ringers are an extremely friendly bunch and the social side of ringing is as enjoyable as all the work up the tower.

I xould right reams on bell ringing and I have only been doing it for about a year. I haven't experienced any breaking pieces of mechanism yet myself by at the first time I attended a practise night, the clapper fell out of the seventh. It didn't put me off and I am now up to ringing touches of plain bob doubles inside and have trebled to two quarters.

Where abouts do you ring? Glad your enjoying it. It is true a lot could be written about it. Do you know of any other ringers lurking out there in the guide?

I am a Bell Ringer, I have been ringing for about three years on and off, but I haven't rang anywhere for months because our local tower has been seriously down on members. I have rung two quarter peals.

I also recommend this hobby to people because it is very enjoyable, social, rewarding and fun for all ages. Once you've mastered the initial handling, then you can get your head around the numbers and how the bells change orders. Then you start to learn how the patterns can be interupted by calls to make them last longer, then you can go on to learn the many hundreds of methods, and even create your own.

Please join if you are thinking about it, because suffering towers like ours are getting out of practise and with new learners the tradition can keep going.

I have recently moved to Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and am passionate about church bells. I would love to take a course, here or abroad, on the art of bell ringing. If anyone has a lead, I'd really appreciate it. Also, I've noticed that most of the bells here in Montreal are now mechanized (yuck!) and that the bell towers are inaccessible (very sad). I'd like to do something about this so if anyone out there lives in my neck of the woods and is interested, perhaps we can join forces to re-introduce campanology to Montreal. I look forward to hearing from you.

Hi, I've had a quick look into this and although there is a tower in Montreal they were listed as unringable (as you have already found out). I do have a contact number and an address for ringers Quebec if this is any use, I'm sorry to say my geography knowledge is very limited and I've no idea how far Montreal is from Quebec city.

There are two towers listed in Quebec as being ringable, the cathedral and one other. If this would be of any use let me know and I'll send you the details. The other possibility would be to contact the North American guild of ringers (I have a contact for them as well) and they could give you more information on courses etc. that you could go on.

Hope this is useful, good luck

Odo

I'm a ringer, and found h2g2 just now when researching Marline spikes (cf). Whisper it quietly on a BBC site but tomorrow 8pm Sunday 15th Sept on ITV Midsomer Murders is based on a ringing scenario. Rather gory I gather but the actors really did learn to ring in order to make the programme.

A good murder I thought and even some of the ringers were recognisable characters. But what of the deranged Captain? I've had some interesting comments from friends at work!

You mentioned bell ringing courses 'abroad'.

I expect you know about the various UK bell ringing courses that exist. One that I can recommend from personal experience is at the Fire Ring & Marches teaching Belfry - the URL of their web site is:
http://www.firering.co.uk .
I should also declare an interest here as I created their web site - have been on several of their courses from absolute beginner in 1999 to helper this year.

Have a look.

I ring too, though I can't at the moment due to other commitments . There is currently an entry in the Flea Market which I have put my name down for- anyone else interested?

Oh, and on the Midsomer Murders theme- do you *ever* get three double handers in one tower in a village?? But little niggles aside (like the bell dubbing occasionally ) I though it was great.

On the murder front yes it was highly entertaining. It has led to repercussions though. On an outing one of the tower captains who lives locally decided that after several pints of at lunchtime he would double hand at an eight bell tower. He was very insistent but was forcibly restrained by his wife whilst the extra bell was lowered. I wasn't present at the time but the story of his attempted performance has been spread round locally.

What/where is the Flea Market?

It is the place that entires go when their owner has not been on h2g2 in several months. If you see the look of one you like, you can adopt it, edit it, or rewrite some of it if you need, and you can have an entry (creditinf the original author, of course). It's quite a nifty little place.

If you guys could possibly have a look at the entry on ringing in thw Writing Workshop (a place for entries that need polishing up)and help from ringers would be helpful!

I've been a ringer for about 25 years, started by accident when I was little - the tower captain wanted someone to help him lower the tenor.

It was recommended to me when I started ringing quarters and peals, that I keep a record of when it was, at what tower, the method and course that we rang, those that took part, whether it was for any special reason, and any notable things such as it being someone's first inside, or their first as conductor. I looked back through my book the other night as I was unpacking and read silly little things like the reason "For a quiet practice night" and another time "For the hell of it!" as well as the more sensible things such as "Easter Sunday".

Regarding towers around the country and around the world; I have found a software package called "Towerbase". It lists hundreds or towers, their saints name if any, where it is, (both Britain and Overseas), how many bells, whether the tower is even ringable. There are lots of way to sort them to find some, like if there are any close if you are going overseas.

Happy ringing to everyone!

Yvonne

A bit like a copy of Doves?

I've not seen a copy of Dove's in ages and ages. Partly because I've not been in a tower friendly enough to ring in. I think Towerbase has a website, but I don't know the URL. It contains stuff like the number of bells, a grid reference so you can do radius searces and the Diocese they are in if you want to contact them.
That's all I can remember off-hand, I've not looked at it in ages. Check out their website if you can find it.