In good times i.e. pre pandemic, we usually ring about 8 quarter peals every year at Great Gransden. We have rung three so far this year and hope for many more in the coming months. But peals are a different matter. They take nearly three hours and require a different level of stamina and mental agility. The last rung here was in 2015 on 28th November. This was Phillip’s 350th peal and completed extents in methods in readiness for a peal, elsewhere, of 41 spliced Surprise minor.

It was no surprise to receive a request from Sue Marsden to ring a peal here, this year. She had previously indicated that she would like to ring one on the re-hung bells. Her only previous peal at Gransden was 9th October 1999, the last peal on the bells before re-hang. The pandemic had stopped all ringing and as we are now getting back to normal, Gransden was near the top of her list.

Sue, and her selected ringers, had intended to ring 41 spliced but decided to ring just seven methods (an extent of each), and this was successfully achieved in 2 hours 52 on Saturday 26th February. The last two minutes can be heard by following this link .

The village were advised of the ringing, as we do for most of our “extra” performances, and several people commented on how much they had enjoyed the sound drifting over the village.

In late September 2021 the clock hour striking mechanism failed. This was due to a faulty sprocket which had become mis-aligned. The Cumbria Clock Co visited and concluded that a new sprocket needed to be manufactured, and that it would be January before the work could be completed.

January came, and nearly went, but there was no sign of the clockmaker. A communication apologised for the delay and said it would be March. And so, March it was! Two engineers turned up on Wednesday 2nd and set to work replacing the faulty part. Several hours later the work had been successfully completed. Clock hour strike and chimes are now back in full working order and at ringing practice on Thursday the bells were rung down in time for the nine-o-clock chimes. We are back to normal!

I musn’t forget to mention the special “half-time” sweets this week, courtesey of David and Sheila P, bringing them from their recent trip to Belgium. Very more-ish and impossible to eat only one! Here is a photograph of some displayed in a circle. Very appropriate for bell shaped chocolates!

During the excitment of our quarter peals at the beginning of February we already had plans to ring a date touch on 22nd February. This date was chosen because it has all the two’s 22 02 2022, and it would be appropriate to ring 2022 changes on that day.

And so, on Two’sday 22nd Feb the ringers met and we set off on our longer than usual length of ringing (1 hour 7 minutes). The ringing started with 582 changes of doubles (Plain Bob and Grandsire) which was followed by 1440 chages of Cambridge S Minor. We had some good ringing and as always, were happy to be successful in our endeavours. We dedicated the ringing to Naomi’s mum Hilary, who celebrated her 91st birthday on this day. It was also the 30th date touch on the bells, most of which have been on New Year’s Day.

We received some lovely feedback from this ringing. Nancy said how lovely it was, and that when she had spoken to others around and about the village they said how nice the ringing sounded and how calming it was.

We are continually improving in our Call Changes, Plain Hunt and Plain Bob Doubles. Catherina comes along to our practes when she can and this is a great help. At practice this week we had an additional visitor – Christian Burrell, who is one of the Hunts District ringing masters. This gave us a spare person and Phillip was able to stand behind and guide our improvers more effectively.

Tied bell practices are focussing on Plain Hunt and calling Call Changes. We are scheduled to visit the Stretham REC (Recruitment and Training Centre) on Saturday 26th March. We have requested training on Plain Hunt and Plain Bob Doubles, so our preparation now will help us get the best out of the REC when we visit.

Also this week, Tricia asked Catherina if she could visit St.Neots to ring. The answer, of course, was yes! I think we should arrange some tower visits now that the Covid restrictions are off!

We have just completed the third performance piece of ringing arranged from 5th to 7th February 2022, involving twelve different ringers.

On Saturday 5th we rang a quarter peal of Cambridge S Minor which was our (Sheila and Phillip George) 250th on the bells. We also rang our first quarter peal on the bells together, which was on 10th June 1972. We drafted in some family members and long-term ringing friends to complete the band for this auspicious event, and after an excellent ring-up in peal had some very nice ringing which took 50 minutes. https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1488925

Sunday 6th was the platinum anniversary of th H M Queen Elizabeth II accession to the throne. There have been at least 796 performances across the UK and worldwide celebrating this magnificant achievement and Gransden Ringers were included. Six local ringers rang an especially composed touch of 70 call changes. https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1490085

Our final piece of ringing was on Monday 7th. We had arranged this initially for Rebecca Glazier, ringer from Thriplow, to gain experience in trebling to doubles. Rebecca started to learn ringing in late 2019 but the pandemic put all “in person” learning on hold until in recent months. She has had several practices at Gransden and has rung tenor behind to a few quarter peals in her home tower.

The ringing today was Plain Bob doubles and Rebecca rang very well to a very enjoyable quarter peal. https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1490731

The main footnote to this quarter peal was “In memoriam Dr. Francis Jackson CBE, (2 Oct 1917 – 10 Jan 2022), organist and composer, who served as Director of Music at York Minster for 36 years. Uncle in law of Catherina.”

Dr Jackson’s funeral was at York Minster last week and as he was much loved uncle in law to Catherina we dedicated this quarter peal to him.

Our weekly practices are well supported and enhanced by daytime sim/tied bell sessions to help improve bell control, during which we practise dodges, calling changes and ringing up and down in peal. There is also a lot of theory and the whiteboard usually gets covered in lines and numbers! We also keep an eye on the Learning the Ropes progress books for everyone and I’m please to announce that Julia has passed her level 1. (certificate and presentation to follow).

The latest Covid guidelines by the Church of England have been issued, which come into line with government regulations about restrictions, which are now being eased. So called Plan B ceased on the 27th January and it is no longer mandatory to wear masks in public areas. Plan B made an exemption for bell ringing (and similar activities), which are classed as excercise, and/or that take place in non-public parts of a building.

The CofE and CCCBR continue to recommend caution when ringing in enclosed spaces and we are mindful that whilst we can ring with no legal restrictions, ventilation and hand sanitising still contributes to keeping us safe. Our risk assessment has been modified to reflect the latest guidelines.

We have several ringing events planned in the tower during February, some of which were postponed from Christmas, and these will be reported in due course. They include three quarter peals and a full peal!

Thinking further ahead, we have made enquiries about visiting the Stretham Recruitment and Education Centre (REC). We hope to attend ringing sessions with more experienced ringers who can help us with Plain Hunt, Plain Bob and Grandsire. This will probably take place over several sessions, all on a Saturday, and we expect to be visiting during March.

We have recently received some lovely comments about how much people enjoy hearing the bells on a Thursday evening. Let’s hope that our ringing continues to reach everyone and that we are able to interest some in joining our team. And, as ever, we are grateful for the encouraging support of Rev Rachel.

Here is a photograph of the ringers at our practice on Thursday 27th January 2022. Thanks to Catherina for visiting from St.Neots (and for checking the bell fund accounts while she was here!)

2021 has been a slightly more “normal” year than 2020, the latter being spent almost entirely in lockdown due to the Covid pandemic. Covid social distancing restrictions were eased on Monday 17th May 2021 but we were only allowed a maximum of six ringers in the tower and we had to sanitise our hands and wear face coverings. We also needed to make sure we had all doors and window opened to improve ventilation.

We returned to the tower immediately, starting with tied bell practices using the simulator, and making sure that everyone had an opportunity to ring over the following few weeks. This helped us get back into ringing. We recommenced open ringing in early June and by July there was no restriction on numbers which made our ringing much easier to organise.

Since June we have rung for 14 services and practiced on 23 occasions. The average attendance has been 7 ringers (including an occasional visitor) and it is pleasing to have this support.

We have also had 18 simulator practices which continue to be a valuable time for extra practice and theory. The sim has certainly come into its own in the last 2 years, enabling more bells to be rung and supporting our learning. A total of 19 quarter peals have been rung on it this year.

One quarter peal was rung on open bells, the first since March 2020, and we have rung four lots of 120 call changes, celebrating marriages and births.

We had plans for ringing over the Christmas period but decided at the last minute to postpone most of them because of the sudden emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid which is highly infectious and which, we felt, put us at higher risk. However, plans have already been made to carry out this ringing in the New Year.

We have ten resident ringers, but as with all towers not everyone can be there all of the time, so we need to continue to use social media and word of mouth to make our presence known so that we can increase our team and grow in experience.

A team photo taken in August was the only time we were mostly all present. It is included in a design for a jigsaw puzzle which represents our group in 2021, surely a landmark year, but we are looking forward to an even more successful 2022 with many exciting objectives to be achieved.

It is Sunday 14th November 2021 and we have been ringing half muffled for the service of Remembrance this morning. We were able to ring all six to call changes. We also rang half muffled for practice on Thursday the 11th when nine ringers took part. The quarter peal attempt earlier in the day was unsuccessful but we rang for over half an hour which itself was good practice. Many thanks to Becca Glazier of Thriplow for coming over to ring at the last minute due to illness of one of the band.

Here is a clip of the ringing during our practice session.

The muffles had to come off on Friday when we rang in celebration of the forthcoming marriage of Michael Prest and Adrienne Brayman. Michael is a former ringer at the tower and he, together with brother Martin and parents Sheila and David made up two thirds of the band with Sheila and Phillip George completing it. We rang 120 call changes which took 24 minutes with very good ringing throughout. Details can be found here.

On Wednesday we held the usual weekly tied bell/sim practice. We are currently working on bell control and practising dodging to help with this. There is always a lot of theory at these sessions and the white boards come into their own when it comes to explaining up’s & down’s and in’s & out’s.

Ringing at the moment is a bit like a spluttering engine, one moment it is running and the next it suddenly stalls, and this is all beyond our control. We have had to cancel one tied bell practice and two ringing practices due mainly to our brush with Covid and the need for different individuals to stay away in the interest of everyone’s safety. This, coupled with holidays, has left us with a minimal number of ringers.

However, we are optimistic and are preparing for ringing in November which will hopefully include a half muffled quarter peal on the 11th, following in the evening by further half muffled ringing for practice. On Friday the 12th we are ringing on open bells to celebrate the wedding of one of our former ringers, and on Sunday 14th the muffles will be on again for the Remembrance service.

Normal practices and tied bell sessions will continue for the rest of the month and on the 28th we will be ringing for the Advent carol service.

All in all it should be a good month for ringing as long as we can keep clear of the virus, and this is proving to be more difficult just now! See our calendar for ringing times.

We had a good practice last night (Thursday 15th Oct) and welcomed Catherina who had come over to ring with us. Hon T/C delegated the running of the practice to David and he organised us to ring call changes, plain courses of Grandsire and 120’s of Plain Bob and St.Martins. A ladies band was selected to ring call changes.

Tricia rang the tenor a couple of times to call changes and Plain Hunt on 5, which was good experience and learning for her. St.Martins was rung for the first time since lockdown and dusted off a few cobwebs.

As usual sweets at half time accompanied the notices, and this week a reminder of the emergency evacuation procedure in the event of a fire or other catastrophe.

We are gradually catching up from where we left off in March 2020 but it will be a while before we are completely up to speed again, but it is progress. Our striking needs attention!! Midweek tied bell/SIM practices are heping with bell control & the theory of change ringing. We are now looking at “wrong” working and are doing a lot of dodging practice. Ringing up and down in peal also features. The SIM is a real benefit to the tower. Everyone is welcome.

Thanks to David for running the practice at the drop of a hat, testament to our teamwork and support from all the ringers.

What does this mean? Well, its not like my garden shed with lots of tools and equipment where we manufacture tower captains, although it would be useful sometimes to have them ready made. The role of the tower captain is multi faceted. The TC (or Ringing Master) needs to be able to organise the ringing and although this may sound straight forward enough it involves a lot more than that, especially when managing ringers who you may not know.

Sheila and I attended this TC workshop on Saturday 2nd October. It was one of six workshops organised as part of the Association’s training day and this particular one was held at Swaffham Bulbeck. The session was attended by eight ringers, some of whom had many years experience in this role, and others who had only recently been appointed.

We were there as helpers and were able, with the other experienced TCs, to guide others through decision making processes when deciding what to ring, placing ringers on particular bells, appointing a conductor and giving positive feedback to ringers as required.

As well as a lot of interactive discussion we had some practical ringing sessions where some of the skills were put into practice which helped consolidate the learning.

Swaffham Bulbeck is off the A14 just pasty Anglesey Abbey. The church is flooded with light and houses a ring of 8 bells with a tenor of 10 1/4 cwt (520 kg). The bells are rung from an open gallery which has fine views of the church interior, and there are kitchen and toilet facilities. Many thanks to the SB ringers for allowing us to use the bells.

It was a great afternoon, good to meet some ringers for the first time and good to ring on eight bells!

Time moves on, that inextricable link bewteen one moment and another, creating memories and our history.

The church clock signals the time for us minute by minute, the dial on the north face of the tower assuring us (if we care to glance up) that we are on time, or late, or that life goes on as normal; and on the hour the clock mechanism springs into action to strike the tenor bell, signalling the time of day.

But, we now have a problem! The winding mechansism for the hour strike failed last week, entangling cables and with chains slipping off winding gear. We are unsure as to the cause of the problem and have assessed that it is best to ask the clockmaker to attend to rectify this.

For the time being the clock will continue to show the time but there will be no hourly or three hourly chimes. We hope that we can fix the problem very soon!

Still writing on the them of time, we were delighted this week to welcome to the church Mr & Mrs Robert Livett. Robert is the direct descendant of Nicholas Livett who was churchwarden here in 1686. Robert has carried out extensive searches into his family history and wanted to visit the church where his ancestor had worshipped and who lived in the village 335 years ago.

I was able to give him some relevant history of the church and took them both into the ringing room to see the church from there, and where I was able to chime old No3 bell, which Nicholas would have heard when he was alive.

What a wonderful continuity of history?