A special day – and we felt that the ringers marked it appropriately.
It all started on Saturday when Alfie and Erin came up the tower with Dad and helped to put the muffles on the bells.
A Big Wilf bell muffle
Muffles are leather pads (a bit like horse knee pads) that are strapped on one side of the clapper so that the bell goes “clang” when it swings one way and a muffled “bong” when it swings back again. The pad is attached with some very heavy-duty Velcro straps.
(The picture shows a muffle installed. From the look of it, either the bell is “up wrong”, with the clapper on the wrong side, or it is an action shot, showing the bell as it begins its swing. I suspect it is up wrong!)
The really important bit about installing muffles is to put them ALL on the correct side so you get alternating rows of soft and loud ringing. I’m glad to report that The Team got every bell right!
All 12 of our regular ringers arrived on Sunday morning – a great turn out! With the addition of Erin (a MiniRinger, but not yet a tower bell ringer) there were six young people on parade. Some were in Scout uniform as they would be on parade shortly at the War Memorial. We were delighted with the way that they all managed. Some are seasoned Sunday Service ringers; for others it was a newer experience. I was wondering what to write to them to say thank you, but David beat me to it!
I don’t know if you will be sending a message to our young ringers about their performance this morning. If you are, feel free to tell them that I was very proud of what they achieved. They seemed to be self-motivated to do their best, which is all we could ever ask. I thought that they did exceptionally well, and I felt privileged to be a part of the team.
