We usually have an end of year social event which takes the form of an evening dinner in either the Prests of George’s house. This year Sue and Ant kindly invited us to their new house and we all agreed that a lunch time buffet would fit the bill perfectly.
We decided on 4th January 2025 at 12.30pm and we all brought a variety of delicious foods including salads, meats, quiches, pavlovas and chocolate moousse. Soft drinks, wine and beer was also available. We enjoyed the spacious comfort of Sue and Ant’s home, especially the log burner adding warm atmosphere to a most convivial occasion.
A part-completed jigsaw in another room invited our attention and one of David’s quizes entertained us amidst groans and laughter when we realised how easy some of the anagrams were (all with a Christmas theme).
David presented Sheila and Phillip G with gifts of their favourite QualityStreet chocolates with thanks to them for leading the team during 2024. Phillip thanked Sue and Ant for hosting the event, which was warmly applauded. I seems that a lunch time social received favour amongst all!
We have had a good ‘ringing year’ and some plans have already been made for 2025. In the meantime, here is a video featuring some of our ringing during 2024, and we wish you all a Happy Christmas and New Year.
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
We occasionally hatch new plans in our continual engagement with the local community. As we all look forward to Christmas we decided to open up our practice night on the 12th December to anyone from the benefice who might lke to visit us in the ringing room.
The church Christmas tree lights were on to welcome people in and we started our ringing as usual in the glow of our own festive lights. Then, to our delight, two visitors came into the church and we eagerly beckoned them towards the sprial staircase. They were warmly welcomed and were soon chatting with our ringers who during the evening explained all about ringing.
Neither visitor had been inside a ringing room before and this experience was completeley new to them. We had advertised that people could chime our bells, so we rang down the front three and taught them how to chime Rounds on 3. We then rang up the bells again and encouraged them to try backstrokes and handstokes, under supervision of course. They both did very well .
During our ringing of call changes and Plain Bob Doubles brief explanations were given to help them understand what we were doing. One of the visitors, Neil, took some video and later some photographs and posted them on the Gransdens Facebook page, where we then became the subject of the cover photo. Thank you Neil, that’s excellent publicity.
After the practice, both were given a tour of the tower, first into the clock room and then to see the bells where there was a lot of interesting conversation about the history of the place. I think they were amazed at what they saw.
The ‘compulsory’ team photo was taken before we all went our seperate ways having enjoyed a lovely evening with new friends. . Thank you, everyone for coming, and for bringing mince pies!
Nationally, there are only 30,000 bell ringers. There are many reasons why numbers are in decline. Most ringers are aware of the chellenges that we face in manitaining local ringers and developing and improving our skill levels. To help consolidate some ideas for progress in sustaining ringing Gransden Ringers arranged a seminar inviting all ringers in the Ely Association.
This was held on Saturday the 7th December in the Reading Room, Great Gransden. Twenty-two ringers attended with apologies from a further thirteen. Phillip George presented slides and invited discussion on topics including: Where is ringing now? What are we doing well? What are the challenges? Who are our major stakeholders? How can we respond to changes in our ringing culture?
There was a lot of good input from attendees and we identified key words including: Teams, Communication, Training, Support, Resilience, Leaders, Engagement. A action plan was suggested for all towers to consider.
The Gransden Team welcomed everyone with coffee and biscuits and at half time refreshed the company with home made cake. After the seminar eleven ringers were able to enjoy ringing our glorious bells.
The feedback received suggests that it was a worthwhile seminar and several people said that they would take away some of the ideas as suggestions in their own towers..
The autumn has been a busy time for us. Having hosted Norton ringers on the 12th October, we welcomed ringers from Hexham Abbey on the 26th. Their visit was arranged by Ruth Kemsley, one of our occasional visitors on a Thursday practice night. There were about a dozen in the group and they rang the usual mixture of Plain Bob and Grandsire, and invited Sheila and me to ring in some Stedman.
Hexham Abbey ringers
One of the ringers seemed familiar and it turned out to be Karen McCleave (ne Reeves). Karen and Sheila rang their first peals together at Meldreth in 1978, and it was probably nearly as long ago that we had seen one another. She was keen to learn about my method of teaching learners to ring in ten lessons, which I was happy to share.
A half-term family get together (with Mark and Rebecca Banner) gave us the opportunity to ring a quarter peal at Gransden. Seeing the opportunity for some good ringing I invited Tom Ridgman (Haslingfield) and James Gamble (St Neots). I decided on ringing Cambridge and conducted it from the 5th, choosing a more interesting composition than the traditional WHW. We raised the bells in peal and the quarter peal took 43 minutes. A super ring down in peal followed and we all felt that we had done a good job. It was Mark’s 250th quarter peal on tower bells.
L-R: Tom, Rebecca, Mark, Sheila, James, Phillip
The next seasonal highlight was a trip to Taylor’s Bell Foundry in Lougborough, which was part of our autumn outing. We usually have two outings every year (one in the spring too), but on this occasion as the guided tour was 90 minutes we only rang at one tower in the morning. This was at St Andrew’s Church Prestwold (8. 10 1/2cwt), just a few minutes away from the foundry. We rang for 45 minutes, Rounds and Call Changes, and a bit of Cambridge S. Minor.
The weather was cool and cloudy and we decided that a planned for visit to Queen’s Park in Loughborough for a picnic lunch was not partciluarly attractive, so we stayed in the church. The church was very comfortable and we appreciated the hospitality shown by our host, Melanie Davis.
After lunch, handbells were rung by myself, Sheila George, Rebecca Banner, Mark Banner, Catherina Griffiths and Josh Crutch, to a variety of methods including Plain Bob, Single Oxford and St Clements.
Our tour of the bell foundry was set for 1.30pm and we were greeted at the new reception area and provided with hi-viz jackets and given a safety briefing. It is a working foundry and care must be taken to adhere to the safety requirements.
The tour began outside the buildings when the history of bell founding in Loughborough was explained. The Taylor foundry originated in St Neots in the 1780s by the then founder Joseph Earye. Subsequent foremen and apprentices moved the foundry to Oxford and then Devon before a commission to cast ten bells for Loughborough Parish Church brought John W Taylor to the town in 1839.
Although a grant from Historic England provided new reception buildings, the upgrading of the museum and other important improvements, the workshops remain busy industrial areas typical of a heavy engineering business and retain their former character and atmosphere.
The tour included all areas, from the casting hall, the wheel shop, the handbell department and tuning area. Each part of the factory was described in detail and all our many questions were answered.
The final part of the tour was to the museum wher we could strike diferent bells and buy souvenirs before ringing on the 12 change-ringing bells (tenor 6 cwt).
Ringing the 12 change-ringing bells at Taylor’s Bell Foundry
We had an excellent day. Our thanks go to all the staff and volunteers at the bell foundry, and to St Andrew’s Church, Prestwold.
We were pleased to welcome ringers this afternoon, from St Nicholas church, Norton, Herts, and Sandon. Previous towers of the day for them included Little Eversden, Toft and Bourn.
They rang Plain Bob, Grandsire, Call Changes and Stedman, and Sheila and I were invited to ring too, which we very much enjoyed. At the end of the session they rang the bells down in peal in time for them to make the short trip to their last engagement of the day, which was Eynesbury.
It was lovely to chat with the ringers in between touches, and share anecdotes. The live band setting up for the 5pm contemporary harvest service appreciated the ringing too. Thank you, Norton ringers, for chosing Gt Gransden.
A local band were privileged to ring for the memorial service of Barry Girling on Tuesday 8th October. Barry was a very popular and active member of the Gransden community, with interests spanning music, rugby, horse racing, badminton, golf, social activities and churchyard grass cutting. The church was full of family and friends, with eulogies recounting Barry’s rich life.
Ringing followed the service, while the congregation moved to the local pub, The Chequers, for refreshments and to share memories of Barry. (DG)
Saturday 28th September, a cool but bright sunny day. It was the second time that we had hosted the Ely DA Young Ringers and although only half a dozen attended they had a very enjoyable and productive 90 minutes. Ringing included Rounds, Call Changes, Grandsire and Slapton doubles.
Leader, Lesley Boyle, always gives the group opportunities to conduct, or ring heavier bells. This time there were several conductors of call changes and Grandsire, and a chance to ring backstrokes on the tenor to Rounds.
The last touch of the day was a course of Stedman, which included mentors and parents in the band and this was folowed by a very good ring down in peal, and refreshments were enjoyed before going home.
Many thanks to the Young Ringers for chosing Great Gransden, you are always very welcome.
As we arrive at the end of the summer holidays we reached our final target for this period. As previously reported, Josh and Haydn have made great strides during the summer and received certificates in doing so.
On the 29th of August we presented Em Santus with her Level 1 certificate having reached that standard within 8 weeks of 1:1 lessons. Em also attended the normal Thursday night practices, which all our learners do from the outset, as this helps understand the jargon and protocol of ringing as well as giving more rope time.
Em is off to university now but we’ll see her between terms, and she already has ringing lined up. As well as ringing at Gransden Em has taken herself off to the training centre at St Clements in Cambridge, and a chance conversation with one of the ringers there introduced her to St Benet’s, which she visited on Friday evening, and there is an opportunity to ring on the 12 at GSM before she leaves.
Em is very keen, enthusiastic and skilled, and I am sure will do very well in her ringing career. Well done Em, and good luck at uni!
Em receives her certificate surrounded by the local ringers
Great Gransden Bell Ringers 