Do the general public appreciate, or even know how to differentiate between good or bad quality ringing? I think the general answer to this is no, primarily because they are not listening with a critical ear, or are they? Occasionally on descending the tower I have received favourable comments, “Oh the bells sounded nice today”. These welcome words always seem to correspond to the day when our standard of striking has been particularly good, that is a rhythmic sound with no “dotted notes” or clashes. In this I’m reminded of an outing from Sapcote, Leics., to Appleton, Berks., now almost 61 years ago, most memories of this long gone day lost in the mists of time, but not all.
It was Saturday, March 4th, 1961, when I, together with my life long friend, the late Michael Brown of Sapcote organised a day out to “The Great Ringing Day” at Appleton. En route, as we descended the map southwards, we had arranged to ring at Southam, Great Tew, Brailes and Kidlington, with of course occasional visits to local hostelries en route. In those days one requested permission to ring by sending a letter addressed to eg “The Vicar, St James Church, Southam ,Warwicks” enclosing a stamped addressed envelope, and this usually worked well, as unlike today most churches had an incumbent who generally lived close to the church. We received positive replies to all excepting Southam, the first tower of the day from where we had no reply at all. Michael and I decided to risk going to Southam , find the vicar “beard him in his den”, and politely request permission.
We found him at home, and most reluctant to give permission but at length he relented, “ not more than half an hour”. On this particular outing I had endeavoured to invite ringers who I knew had a good sense of musical time and who could strike their bells very well indeed, which was perhaps as well. I recall our ringing a plain course of Stedman Triples, a course of Bob Major, then three leads of Bristol and straight into a fall in peal. I rang the tenor to this and during the fall I noticed from the corner of my eyes, a figure had entered the church and was standing close, regarding us. All of our ringing had been of excellent quality, especially the fall, accomplished with the precision of a metronome-ah beautiful. The bells down and chiming in rounds, that character from Lincolnshire, the late John E Cook on the treble gave the command accompanied by a vigorous stamp on the flagstones, “miss ‘em and catch ‘em in queens” and as the hum of the bells died the “figure” spoke. “Thank you gentlemen for the wonderful ringing.” It was our reluctant vicar, whose attitude had completely changed. He had been negative because they had had visitors who jangled their bells which had not pleased him and also perhaps others in the near vicinity. He went on to ask us where we all rang, again thanking us for the excellent striking.
As mentioned above, memories of that long gone day are mostly gone like leaves in the wind, but Southam and a few others remain almost as yesterday. Five of us had travelled in Michael’s van and I recall some of the return journey. The night was clear, moonlight with frost and initially we attempted a song, “Green Grow the Rushes Oh”, but this soon ended as all save our driver fell asleep. So readers we were brought safely back to Sapcote, thus concluding a memorable and enjoyable day. However I’m still not convinced that the general public appreciate good ringing, but our reluctant Vicar of Southam certainly did.
John Bennett