The Sunday School for over 8 year olds is held in the Ringing Room during the morning church service. I have worked closely with the leaders making sure that everything in the room is safe for the children. One of the leaders asked if it would be possible for the children to visit the rest of the tower one Sunday after the service, and as we always welcome visitors to the tower I was very pleased to arrange this. We set a date for Sunday the 15th December 2024.
I escorted eight children and three supervising adults into the ringing room for a briefing, explaining that they should never touch any of the ropes, or anything in the other rooms either. This was greeted by a reply from one of the boys “..don’t touch anything that you don’t need to touch!” I thought this was a very wise comment and agreed with him!
The first stop was the clock room, which is also a museum displaying obsolete bell fittings. I handed round a small bell clapper from the No 2 bell (pre re-hang in 2000) and asked adults to help in case the children found it to be too heavy. “What is it made of?” one child asked. “Iron”, I said, a special type called wrought iron.” She replied, “I found a pieces of iron once.” The clapper finally found its way back to me and we then headed up to the belfry. This involves a small, supervised, scramble up a runged climb on to the viewing gantry. They all managed this easily. I demonstrated a gentle strike of the tenor and explained which bell was which.
The same boy asked if church bells are ever hung in different churches. I was able to say that usually the answer is ‘no’, but in our case the tenor bell was originally hung in Bletsoe church, and I briefly explained the story. After this exchange we carefully snaked our way down the spiral staircase to the ringing room. The dexterity of the children negotiating access and egress was impressive.
I asked Em to demonstrate raising and lowering a bell so that they could watch this on our CCTV and then, when all was ‘safe’, I invited everyone to chime the bells. They produced a riotous cacophony of sound as they clanged away, trying different bells, with the 5th and tenor occasionally sounding when the older children got the hang of chiming them.
It was delightful to have all these youngsters in the tower, with a lot of excited chatter, chiming our bells as we look forward to Christmas.
Photos taken and published with parental permission
Great Gransden Bell Ringers 