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

Well, what's the last thing you do to the bells before you put *them8 to bed for the night? Well, on old systems anyway.

Ring them down.

Well that's not what we used to do!

I think it depends a bit on where you come from; most places leave them down for safty reasons.

Well I wish our lot had! mind you now your making me doubt my memory. Perhaps we had to ring them up before we started rather than having the first swing from the down position. No, I'm sure we used to ring them up at the end cos I could never work out how people knew how to do it!

Some places leave them set at backstroke, this jargon must sound very to any lurkers, (ie. tail end of the rope dangling in mid air).

Hmm, nope, the ropes were down cos you had to loop them so they didn;t trail on the floor, so we must have rung them up at the end.
Always surprised me how much travel they had, used to to see the more 'advanced' ones swinging on the ropes on the up swing but I wasn't confident i wouldn;t be dragged through the rope guides
I remember one of the 'old boys' who, when there was a chance of us getting a fifth (i thik) bell in the tower mocked up a model of the tower and managed to prove that if it was hung then we couldn't ring it and any other bell at the same time without potentially toppling the tower.

Where on earth is/was (you sound like an ex-ringer) this tower? It sounds very scary wherever it was.


Were you ringing full circle or just chiming the bells.

sounds noisy

It's usually louder outside the tower than in.

I like bells from distance...I live about 5 min away from church tower with bell organ

They're not 'propper' bells though.

they are very propper bells...they wake me completely if I hear them

But they aren't being rung properly.

how do you know that?

the bell organ isplayed by human who is one the best

Ah well, there is British Change Ringing, where be bells are rung 'full circle' each bell being rung by one ringer.

Then there are various other way bells can be rung, campaniles , bell organs etc. These involve hammers hitting the bells controlled by some sort of mechanism sometimes requiring a human operator, sometimes electronically controlled.

Then there is continental ringing where the bells are chimed randomly and make a lot of noise.

I insure you that the Bell organ makes a lot of noise here

The carrillion next to our school kicks a bl**dy awfull racket too.

Pheloxi - ensure! Sorry, but the insure / ensure confusion is one I do my best educate people on.

Odo, Tower was in a little village in Lincolnshire, and yes, it was full change ringing. i didn;t do it for long, I just about managed to do the basic one where you each take turns in leading the peel by speeding up and slowing down your ringing.

Icky I am taking the Dutch (see my personal space: pheloxionairy)