Ronny and his wife Priscilla moved to Ramsbury from Cookham in Berkshire in 1975.
When Ronny first came to the village the organist at Holy Cross and a parishioner, Bert Watts, chimed two of the bells on a Sunday morning to mark the beginning of services and the other four bells remained idle. Although Ronny knew absolutely nothing about bellringing he persuaded Bert to teach him how to ring.
Having rung-up a bell and without any prior tuition or explanation, Bert simply handed Ronny the bell rope! Anyone who has ever learnt to ring a bell will know just how terrifying the next few minutes would have been for Ronny! Anyway Ronny persevered and having learnt to ring to a sufficient degree he then set about recruiting his friends into the tower and teaching them to ring too. Before long Ramsbury had a band of bellringers and all of the bells of Holy Cross began to be rung on a regular basis.
Thus began Ronny’s forty year tenure as Tower Captain of Holy Cross. Not only did he lead ringing on Sundays and on all the High Days and Holidays in the Church calendar, together with weddings and funerals, but he also he participated in visits to other church towers throughout the country. He has records showing visits to over 150 towers.
Coming from an engineering background, Ronny also took a great interest in the maintenance of bells and, in addition to helping with the restoration at Little Bedwyn and East Grafton (tubular bells), he was also Guild Inspector of Belfries from 1979 to 1997.
Ronny retired from Holy Cross Tower in 2015 and it is fair to say that without his enthusiasm and dedication the bells of Holy Cross might well have fallen silent many years ago.
Ronny and Priscilla moved to Albrighton near Wolverhampton several years ago to be nearer to their son. Priscilla predeceased him by two years and Ronny sadly passed away on 14th September aged 99.
