Ringing Forums

Noise "nuisance" is a pernicious thing. It can be exceedingly debilitating for people sensitised to a particular sound - or the absence of a sound (that triggers our "alert" response and is just as stress-inducing as sudden-onset of a "nuisance" noise). I had a tragic case of an elderly person who was sensitised to the click of an actuator in a lift room on the roof of her block of flats. It clicked every time the lift was called. Although she was in a top floor flat, hers was the third one along from the lift shaft. I could hear the click when standing outside the lift room door, but a sound engineer picked it up in the ceiling complainant's flat! Cost a packet to hitch up the gubbins on an acoustic isolation sandwich. The impact of bells on complainants can usually be ameliorated to some extent, in terms of volume, frequency of use, duration etc, but if it's the quality / nature of the sound then that's much more tricky to resolve. It's essential to establish exactly what it is that upsets the complainant before any knee-jerk reaction leads to unsuccessful changes......the biggest hurdle is entering into a non-judgemental dialogue.

Without getting into the specific circumstances of complaints about particular towers, I want to mention a phenomenon that is not widely understood but which is very often a factor underlying noise nuisance complaints generally. Part of our "flight or fight" response relates to sounds. Our perception of a sound alters with exposure and repetition, to the extent that once a particular sound has annoyed us, even only slightly, we become habituated to subconsciously 'listening out for it' as if it is a threat precursor. The next time we hear it our stress level increases a little more than the previous time until it becomes intolerable after a few repetitions, like nails scraping a blackboard. This is seen by others as an unreasonable, irrational response, but it can be psychologically devastating for the aggrieved person. Examples include, say, a neighbour's yapping dog that the first time is just a minor intrusion but after a week or two becomes an instant trigger of elevated stress on first yap. It is very difficult to ameliorate the problem because it is not the duration of the "noise nuisance" of a bit of ringing on a particular date or time that is the problem, but the listener's instantaneous stress response at the first bong. Having been involved with noise transmission problems every so often throughout my working life I know of distressing they can become for everyone involved. With ringing, every tower's circumstances are different and there cannot be a "one size fits all answer" when someone complains. However, you can be sure that minor tweaks to the duration of ringing periods ALONE is NOT the answer.

Let's just remember that a lot of the, for want of a better phrase, "less active" membership of County Associations etc effectively cross-subsidise a lot of the youngsters we're trying to get into ringing by donating MORE than their own annual subscriptions - e.g. to BRFs, appeals, legacy funds etc. - without which the finances of those Associations would be in far less healthy states than they currently are.

I'm proud to be a member of my County Association but cannot attend functions so compensate through spending a chunk of my pension on bell-related costs.

My home tower is under an embargo on full circle ringing so I frame-chime the bells when I'm well enough to get up the tower. All the debate about the counting or not counting of members is fun but avoids the critical questions. How much does CC need and how much can they morally ask from the bell-sounding community.

Enough debate - cut to the chase.

Well said, Rober

I can't speak to my county association's finances but currently have no objection to the amount I'm asked to pay them and willingly add a donation each year as they work wonders on a shoe-string. However, my home tower is basically un-funded and is only able to keep it's historically significant bells sounding through being entirely funded by private donation. How many other towers survive on the donations of their ringers alone? If there are few or no local ringers, are the bells left to languish unmaintained? I think that Central Council should find out a bit more about TOWER finances nationally before it makes such profound assumptions conflating the sustaining of its own funding from affiliates with the funding of targeted topics for local action.

Having used full industrial quality PPE to remove 2.77cuM of nest materials, guano, eggshells and dead pigeons etc from a tower nearly 30 years ago I was certainly upset to be without PPE when I was accidentally exposed in 2020 to a cloud of such stuff that had remained undisturbed in a tower for 25+ years. Nearly 4 years later I'm still under a hospital respiratory department because, during sleep, my blood oxygen level falls off a cliff and that syndrome, through whatever cause, is often fatal to men over 60yoa. Birds have no place inside any area accessible to bell-ringers and other non-professionals.

I sympathise with people who have been the subject of unwanted / malicious calls etc through having their contact details published, but we now live in a Society where, perhaps, we need to accept some irritations as the price we pay for the wonderful communications systems we now have. I prepared a broadsheet-style handout about my home tower's bells some5 years ago which gets updated every so often. Its handed out / left in Church / distributed amongst some local neighbour businesses etc and it includes my contact details. Yes, I do get occasional junk mail and nuisance calls / spam but these have all been of an ilk that "everyone" now gets. I've received nothing untoward from the hundreds of paper copies of my newsletter that are "out there". Peter Southeran's experience / observations match mine and, I suspect, almost everyone else's.

Are we looking at this from the wrong end of the problem? Surely we need to take any and all opportunities to get people into ringing. Once any newcomers reach the standard of competent rounds (and call changes?) then please do let more people start. There should not be any pressure to bring those first people to methods - they will know when they want to move forward.

Richard, is your definition of "cotter pin" correct? When the term is used with a bicycle it's the funny-shaped rods that set the pedals firmly on the shaft, without relative movement. Many cotter pins on cranks (and also certain nuts) have split pins as well to ensure that the cotter pin (or nut) cannot become detached. The modern articulated chiming hammers at my home tower are held together with split pins (not "cotter pins") because the components need to move relative to each other.

Sadly, JH has a good point.

The method for providing fire protection of penetrations through floors and walls is well established and is of two forms - firstly fully sealing around, say, a pipe, with fully non-combustible material, and secondly, using intumescent materials with or without collapsing containment.

When you need the hole in the ceiling (e.g. for a bell rope), a double-walled tubular sheath containing intumescents can be used. The intumescent is between the concentric tubes forming the cylinder and the inner wall collapses / deforms with the passage of hot products of combustion, thereby closing the opening and stopping the propagation of the fire to the upper compartment / room / chamber.

Sadly, my home tower does not practice what I preach!. I also recommended intumescent strips around all the trap doors etc and the use of intumescent sealant to fill the many gaps between the floorboards in the intermediate and bell chambers. These were not progressed for unknown reasons.

The lovely Victorian Gothic doors have large gaps around the leaves and there more intumescent strips were recommended but not pursued.

The Risk Assessment for a church MUST ALSO include the tower and the specialist equipment therein (the bells etc), but how many Steeple Keepers ensure that it is?

With the vast majority of towers only having a single means of access / escape, and with the individual compartments / chambers / rooms usually having no more than lancet "windows", the most serious risk to bell ringers is fire near or in the tower below them. I've never met another bell-ringer who has considered this.

Please remember that smoke and other products of combustion can get through small gaps as well as sound can. We don't think about fire protection in towers and history can show some destroyed through easy propagation of fire up the chimney that is a bell tower. Ideally, all penetrations through the floors ought to be fire resisting but how on earth that can be achieved is problematic. I can see the benefits of providing sound flaps through floors to aid audibility in ringing rooms but anything that can be left open through forgetfulness or neglect WILL BE.

Those living near the coast needing pulley blocks for rope guides can obtain smaller sizes from yacht chandlers. Larger sizes - e.g. for the ground pulley below the wheel - would most easily be sourced from a specialist supplier through the foundry or bell-hanger.

Might not Jonathan Frye's post be submitted to the Ringing World as the basis of an article for publication on this point? "Heavier" bells are daunting for ringers who have never been guided as to appropriate technique. The first time many ringers experience the problems is on a 'tower outing' on which few present actually have enough experience on heavier bells to give clear instruction.

"Community engagement" seems to carry weight in bids for money for bells - might it also be a useful concept for inclusion in any submission for recognition?

When "our" keys went missing it was in connection with the activities of contractors etc carrying out works in the tower and to the spire, inspections etc. The major work on the spire included installing a permanent steel laddered access route up inside from the bell chamber. The access platform for that is close above two bells so it is a nuisance and an additional health and safety concern when inspecting / maintaining those bells. Bell ringers have no legitimate reason to use this access into the spire - it's prime purpose being for future inspection / maintenance of the spire. However, there is nothing preventing someone with legitimate access to the bell chamber then going off "on a frolic of their own", (as the lawyers say), and ascending to the upper levels. I have recommended that the lowest ladder be provided with, at minimum, a lockable ladder-board, for which no bell-ringer would ever get their hands on the key - but nothing has been done. Has anyone else come a cross a similar security issue / arrangement, please?

Does any one person actually know how many copies of the keys actually exist for your tower? What happens when a key is thought to be "missing"? Since I was "volunteered" to be Steeple Keeper at my home tower keys issued from the Vestry/Sacristy into the temporary keeping of no-ringers have occasionally failed to return. Whilst the responsibility for providing security for the tower and it's contents lies clearly outside the responsibility of the ringers, the day to day management of that security "while the tower is occupied for the purposes of bell ringing or associated small-scale bell-maintenance" lies with us. Since the early 1990s I've unilaterally decided to change the padlocks on the intermediate and the bell chambers twice and the main stair access door once due to keys going missing. Whilst I've provided the new keys to the Parish Priest, retaining copies for myself by agreement, the cost of these locks and keys were borne by the home band's funds. Since none of the keys were lost by ringers, it seems a bit of an imposition for the home band to be relied upon to keep the tower security effective overall. Whilst this is not onerous in real terms, I wonder where legal liabilities would fall should anything go wrong!

My home tower is at a Roman Catholic church so the administrative arrangements are a bit different. I've been a keyholder since I was "volunteered" for steeple-keeping duties back in the 90s. The Parish Priest changes every few years and I "indoctrinate" him at the earliest opportunity regarding the basic safety issues in his belfry. One set of keys to the spiral staircase, the intermediate chamber and bell chamber is in my keeping, another se is with all the various other keys kept in the Sacristy / Vestry. Activity in the tower is almost entirely bell-related so under my control. The only time things go awry is when the Parish Priest's contractors or other agents need access for their purposes. They fail to tell me beforehand, and so I don't get the opportunity to give them a safety briefing regarding bells. This has happened a couple of times in the past but no damage or injuries arose.

Speaking from personal experience during the 1990s, I, a slow-learner, was drawn to progress by the support and inspirational qualities of those around me. For me there was never any inherent motivation to ring peals in great numbers, or "grab" the heaviest towers in the region.....it was the pleasure of participating in a fascinating activity and acquiring skills almost by sublimation. True, there was no ART, and yet I was fortunate in being led to advance almost accidentally by the gentle explanations and never-failing encouragement of the experienced ringers I rubbed shoulders with. Today I still have no aspirations towards peals etc yet would like to keep advancing, albeit slowly-slowly. I can understand the motivators that are pushing forward the desires to improve all aspects of change-ringing, but all the discussion so far is assuming that the student has both the inclination and the capacity to absorb the extraordinary amount of "learning" that is required to achieve the levels of proficiency that are being sought from, if not demanded of them. Please don't lose sight of the natures and, dare I say it, "qualities" of the people who express an interest in ringing. Perhaps acquiring an ability to truly understand the motivations and aspirations of our students is of greater value than providing them with rigidly followed pathway to the giddy heights of "advancement" in our activity?

Wood requires a certain percentage moisture content to maintain its performance in stays as much as in all other uses. I can't remember the figures for ash but each species has a "satisfactory range, below which flexibility and resilience are lost. It's a given than most belfries are humid to some extent and it is unlikely that stays etc would fall below the minimum preferred percentage anyway, so that isn't really the issue. What is more to the point is whether the upper end of ash's preferred moisture content range maintains the required performance better / longer than stays that are much drier. Can anyone enlighten us on that, please? With regard to treating ash with oil I suspect that it would be more beneficial in "wet" towers. It certainly helps maintain the pristine appearance of new installations for longer. In my home tower which I'm using "TuffSpots" to catch all the rainwater that gets in, I'm more concerned about the wetness / dryness of the wheels. The tightness of the joints varies considerably between winter and summer, and some years ago a bellhanger suggested oiling the wheels' spokes and cheeks. This was an interesting conundrum as the Foundry had suggested using a certain wood preservative on the wheels which I knew was incompatible with linseed and similar natural oils. Perhaps in your case, oiling the stays couldn't do any harm, assuming you have no need to use other preservative treatments. Change in cut wood's interstitial moisture content is slow, and, if uneven, leads to cracking
/ splitting. A light oiling helps the cellular structure of the wood to maintain a reasonably stable moisture content.

John, In my experience of using ash more for other purposes than stays, I did in the past find that architectural use of ash posed problems insofar as the inability of a designer to obtain calculations for its performance-in-use. (Such calculations are available for a number of timbers in architectural use and are required to be presented alongside the proposed designs for Building Regulation approval). The data for oak, larch, etc can be used to inform decisions NOT to use these for stays, yet, as far as I'm aware, there is no equivalent data supporting the use of ash for stays, although we are all perfectly happy with it's continued use based upon several centuries of satisfaction. For those who are having difficulty sourcing good ash it would be nice to have the confidence to use an alternative wood. However, trying to kill two birds with one stone, I felt that in a world where making greater use of reclaimed / recycled "plastic" is urgent, perhaps stays would be a good use of such a material. Sorry for any confusion.