Who’s Who? Report and Handbook Editor

The Handbook and Report editor is responsible for the production of the SDGR Annual Handbook and Report.

Graham ‘Ben’ Duke has been compiling the Guild’s Handbook and Annual Report since 2018. It is a painstaking and detailed task involving bringing together a lot of varied information and ensuring it is kept up to date with changes in the previous year. It is a task which requires an eye for detail and keen precision.

Ben’s home tower is Wimborne Minster and he also supports some local village bands including at Morden where he taught a small band from scratch and where he and his wife, Rosemary, organise the ringing. He and Rosemary have always rung regularly on Sunday mornings and on most Sunday evenings, as well as two or three practices a week including the Wareham practice once or twice a month.

Ben has been ringing for nearly 60 years having learnt in 1966 (coincidentally at the same time as Rosemary) at the age of 19, being introduced to the exercise by an ex-classmate during his first summer break from university back in his home town of Nottingham. He rang his first peal in 1968.

Having moved to the London area for work following university in Norwich, Ben was elected to the Society of Royal Cumberland Youths (SRCY) – an ancient and highly esteemed ringing society – and has held various posts in the Society including as Master for 2 years.

Ben was Ringing Master at St Martin-in-the-Fields and St Peters St Albans and was also on the Central Council for Church Bell Ringers (CCCBR), initially for the Hertford County Association and then for the SRCY, from 2002 until about 2018.

His whole career has been as a software developer, primarily on real-time systems for medical scanners and more recently he had 10 years in a software role with the National Lottery.

Since joining the SDGR, having moved to Dorset in 2011 from St Albans following retirement, he was Branch Chairman for a few years during which time he was also the Branch Executive Rep, a post in which he continues to serve. He has taught more than his fair share of ringers over the years including the previously mentioned band at the then silent tower of East Morden, and he’s now a teaching member of ART.

Ben obviously thoroughly enjoys ringing, witness having rung what he describes as “a decent number of peals” but which is actually a highly impressive almost 1800 peals, many on 12 bells, in locations not only around the country but ranging from Australia to the USA where he has toured with the SRCY on numerous occasions. A significant number of these peals have been of various Spliced Surprise Maximus. He rang in the very first peal on the memorial ring at Ypres in 2018 (Ypres Surprise Major) which was also the first peal on church bells in continental Europe, he and his family having contributed to the project in memory of his grandfather, Acting Bombardier George Henry Hutchinson, who was killed in action age 32 at Passchendaele in 1917 and whose name is one of those inscribed on the 4th bell.