Brooke St Peter's Church Bell Ringers
The Bell Ringers meet at the church every Thursday evening at 7.30pm. New members are warmly welcomed.
From Dawn Pullan, Ringing Master
Our regular bellringers at St Peter’s Church, Brooke, are Nicola, Shane, Brenda, Peter, Sandra, Paul, Charles, John, Louise, Steven, & me. We ring every Thursday evening, for practice, and most Sundays, for service.
You might have noticed that we don’t all stay to service but, in Norfolk, bellringing is dependant on itinerant ringers and, as a result, I also ring at St George Colegate, St Michael Coslany and St Peter Mancroft whenever possible on Sundays, which encourages their regular ringers to support us if we expect to be short for practice, for a wedding or even of a bellrope.
That said, we’re very grateful to the PCC for agreeing to share the cost of new bellropes, which arrived just in time for Christmas. The old ones had been in use since June 1983. They really didn’t owe us a penny but wouldn’t have survived until the re-hang.
I’m still selling tea towels, calico bags and mugs to raise funds for the Bell & Tower Restoration Project so, if you haven’t got yours yet, please contact me soon - my stock of tea towels is running low.
Our practice nights may not always be pleasant for the neighbours but, during the past year, I feel we’ve upped our game by challenging both newer and older ringers to learn to ring a method called Stedman Doubles. Fabian Stedman was born in 1640 and is considered by most to be the father of change ringing so it’s special that we should attempt to master his method, albeit 300 years after his death in 1713. I hope that by aiming high, we’ll inadvertantly improve our striking for you on Sundays, since rhythm and ability to get your bell in precisely the right place is critical to the ringing of Stedman.
On Saturday 1st March, five of us attended the Association Training Day, which is an annual event, when we encourage students to learn a new method, with the support of an experienced band of helpers ringing alongside. All credit to the students who rang at Brooke in the afternoon as our bells aren’t easy, being hung anti-clockwise and hung on plain bearings.
Whilst our numbers have remained stable during the past year, several of those mentioned by name earlier are couples who, inconveniently, take their holidays together so, from time to time, we find ourselves in need of more bellringers. Our existing ringers are all now competent who no longer require 121 tuition so, if you know anyone who might like to ‘learn the ropes’, now is the perfect time to send them along for a taster session any Thursday evening from 7.30 til 9pm.
If you’d like to find out more about bellringing, please log onto www.cccbr.org.uk/ or phone me on 07860-135999.