Bertie the mascot was in his summer outfit as five young ringers, plus parents and helpers, met up for a midweek day out in the East Dorset branch. Our first stop was the six bells at Lytchett Minster, where we found the sallies to be quite high but the bells easy to ring. Daniel, Ben and Chris all enjoyed the challenge of ringing the fifth, which is rung from part-way up a staircase. Thank you to Maureen for welcoming us.
A picnic in the shade of a big tree in the churchyard was a good opportunity for people to have a chat before we moved on to Morden. These bells aren’t rung by visitors very often and we were grateful to Rosemary and Ben for arranging for us to do so. For most of the young ringers, this was their first experience of ringing on five bells; the focus was on spacing the bells out more than when ringing on six, in order to give the tenor ringer a fighting chance of keeping in time!
At least two different ice-cream shops in Wareham benefitted from our custom. It was lovely sitting on the quayside watching the swans, but it was now so hot that the ice-cream was melting nearly as fast as you could eat it. Jenny welcomed us into the tower and it was great to be joined by Alex, who is learning to ring at Wareham. The ten bells here are ideal for a young ringers’ practice; they are easy to handle and not too heavy, so everyone was able to try plenty of different bells. Very respectable rounds were achieved by a band which included all six young ringers. Annabelle and Chris both rang plain hunt on nine for the first time and we also rang a plain course of Grandsire Caters with Esther on the treble, Daniel on the second and Ben covering.
When we came down from the tower, the two rectors were both waiting to tell us how much they had enjoyed our ringing and how great it was to see young people learning this ancient art.
If you know of any young ringers who would like to join in with our activities, please get their parent/carer to get in touch with Hilary via the guild website or by emailing: email hidden; JavaScript is required.
