At the end of September Mere Branch members were very much saddened to learn of the passing of Sheila Porter who had been a well known ringer in the branch for around twenty years until she stepped down from ringing in 2021. Many members within our branch, as well as more widely in the rest of the Guild, will remember Sheila as she travelled to many practices and towers around the area over the years.
She was Tower Captain at St Thomas’s, Lydlinch, the village where she lived with her husband, Charles, (although they later moved to nearby Stalbridge). At the 2006 AGM Sheila was elected Vice Chairman of the Mere branch, a post which she held until Christopher Sykes stood down as Chairman at the 2017 AGM when she was persuaded to stand (reluctantly!) as Chairman in his stead for a year until a new Chairman to replace her was elected at the following AGM.
Sheila had emailed me in December 2021 to announce her ‘retirement’ from ringing ‘after 20 enjoyable years’ (her words) – I believe that she learnt to ring later in life but took to it quickly and soon ‘got the bug’ – travelling to local towers to pick up new methods and encouraging others to do so to enable them to progress.
As many will know, Sheila was a down to earth native of Yorkshire and we had many laughs with her during practice nights when she joined our band at Sturminster or when we popped over to ring with her at Lydlinch. At Christmas I remember that she would bring along some of her homemade parkin (or we would have gently reminded her to make some for us!) and there would often be almost as much chat, gossip and laughing as there was ringing. She was instrumental in encouraging our team at Stut to enter ringing competitions and also helped further our ringing by looking up suitable methods to suit the abilities of the ringing band.
A private funeral ceremony was held for close family members to attend.
Michael Williams
Mere Branch Secretary
