Bell ringers all over the country were asked to ring from 6.30pm to 7.30pm on Thursday the 8th May to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VE Day. Our own ringers were able to do this which conveniently fitted in with a Fish and Chip supper in Little Gransden Village Hall at 8.00pm!
The bells were rung up during the day to save time and although we were a couple of minutes late starting we rang more or less continuously until 7.30pm. We decided on three set pieces of call changes. The first was Sixty on Tittums, next came a specially composed piece of 80 changes which we called VE80 (composed by Phillip George), and then our old favourite, Sixty on Thirds.
Sixty on Thirds is a sequence of Devon call changes based on the row 135246 (Queens). The bells are called into this row before following a structured sequence of calls. Sixty on Tittums uses the same structure but starting from the row 142536 (Tittums).
At five and twenty past the hour we completed our ringing by firing the bells. This is when all the bells are struck together in one cacophony of sound. We do this three times interspersing the firing with the ringing of Rounds (123456). The conductore decided that the last sequence should last for several minutes!
Sheila George conducted the Sixty on Tittums and Sixty on Thirds, and Phillip George conducted the VE80 and Firing.
We had some vey nice ringing, thank you to the following ringers: Josh Crutch, Phillip George, Sheila George, Hazel Pettit, David Prest, Sheila Prest and Tricia Williams.
Great Gransden Bell Ringers 