In 1919, James Milner, editor of the popular illustrated newspaper, The Graphic, asked Thomas Hardy for a contribution to the paper’s Jubilee Christmas edition. Despite plenty of advance notice, Hardy was not optimistic he could deliver. In June he wrote:
“I fear I cannot do anything for the Jubilee number since, as you know. I write very little now; nor on searching can I find anything that would suit. But if I come across anything in the course of the next few days I will send it. However, as I say. I fear not.”
But on Thursday 30th October Hardy received the inspiration he needed to fulfil Milner’s request. It was supplied to him by a band of ringers from the Salisbury Diocesan Guild who, on that day, rang the first peal at St Peter’s, Dorchester since 1913; the war of 1914-18 having put paid to much of the ringing in the country. There exists a fine peal board in the ringing chamber of the church and a note appeared in the Ringing World for 7th November which records that Holt’s Ten Part peal of Grandsire Triples was rung in 3 hours 14 minutes, conducted by Charles Goodenough. The footnote to the peal stated that:
“This peal, rung with hall-muffled clappers, was a memorial to those men of the Salisbury Diocesan Guild who gave their lives in the late war.”
The Peace Peal
(After Four Years of Silence)
Thomas Hardy
Said a wistful daw in Saint Peter’s tower
High above Casterbridge slates and tiles
‘Why do the walls of my Gothic bower
Shiver and shrill out sounds for miles?
This gray old rubble
Has scorned such din
Since I knew trouble
And joy herein
How still did abide them
These bells now swung
While our nest beside them
Securely clung…
It means some snare
For our feet or wings
But I’ll be ware
Of such baleful things!’
And forth he flew from his louvred niche
To take up life in a damp dark ditch
– So mortal motives are misread
And false designs attributed
In upper spheres of straws and sticks
Or lower, of pens and politics
At the end of the war (The Graphic 24 November 1919 and Human Shows 1919)
I’m grateful to Gareth Davies for his article “Thomas Hardy and the Bells of ‘Wessex'”, first published in the Ringing World double issue of 22/29 December 1989, from where I’ve extracted the above item.
AW
