Ringing Forums

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.

Thanks, John. Since becoming a broken stay perpetrator some years ago I've been curious that ash has remained the preferred choice in the modern era. Whilst it is certainly resilient, its flexibility is not as uniform as we like to believe and a (visual only) comparison of a number of new spare stays some time ago showed an unexpected and potentially significant variance in the grain. Whilst that is expected in a natural material, that visible variance suggested to me that the performance of otherwise seemingly identical stays might also be variable. With regard to potential alternative materials, I'm neither able to suggest a specific material nor am I desperately searching for one, but it does seem to me that something more flexible than ash would reduce the potential adverse effects on bearings etc of bells being heavily set.

I agree in principle with your points, which relate to a lot of "products". I wonder, though whether there is much difference in the degree of protection afforded to the bell etc. If the stay breaks the bell will continue the unwanted over-rotation. If the stay bends before failure the shock of the bell's retardation would be lessened and the ringer's experience of the event would be less violent. I surmise that the effect could be likened to the crumple zone of a car. Whilst recycled plastic bags might not be suitable, there is a huge variety of "plastic" out there, with a wide variety of properties. Is there a bell-ringing polymer engineer out there who could consider this?

There are a number of products on the market made from recycled polymers - e.g. garden furniture. Whilst these materials have no cellular structure equivalent to wood, they are often able to be worked in very similar ways. The required properties for stays are known - surely it would not be beyond the wit of (wo)man to test bats of such modern materials with the view to finding a sufficiently close equivalent to ash?

I've found all three "volumes" engaging, and have printed off copies to leave "lying about" in our Ringing Room for others to pick up and browse through. They're each impressive in their own ways, and being able to evolve / expand over time is an great asset.

When I was first taught I was advised to imaging throwing the rope through the floor, letting the sally go at the last possible second and finally putting my dominant hand onto that holding the tail, a bit like holding a golf club. Once I'd got used to that my teacher led me into a more relaxed action with my dominant hand. I later found that where my dominant hand actually ended up on the rope varied from bell to bell in our tower. With a comfortable rhythm going, I find my dominant hand ends up in slightly different place on the rope when changing places with another bell during ringing. Not sure if that is an "impure technique", but I mostly notice it when my ringing feels better than my usual...

The taper of groups of worn channels gives an indication of where the ropes went through a point at which no lateral movement was occurring. That point is sometimes, (perhaps usually), a boss, but might also be, say, a pulley wheel where the rope changed direction to the clapper or hammer. A little visual geometry might come up with the height above the arch of, say, an earlier boss or pulley location. Is there a correlation between the number of groups of grooves and the number of bells known to be in the church at different times?

John, the matter of prejudice against frame-chiming has been around for 120+ years and is unabated. A tower in Essex where frae-chiming has been keeping bells sounding during a dearth of FC ringers is a case in point. The local chimer has, for a number of years, chimed carols etc during the Christmas festive season. Recent recruitment has built up the home FC band and the chimer's services "are no longer required". The fact that the resurgence of FC ringing doesn't supply ringers for all services means that there is still plenty of opportunity for the bells to be frame-chimed, but the irrational prejudice of the ringers carries greater weight than long-standing tradition.

I agree. However, RW can publish a little on any topic, but where, other than here, can small voices be "heard" even if CC isn't "listening"?

Jason,

this thread is getting way off the point of the original posers. ANY way of getting people interested enough to start sounding tower bells is an entre to eventual full-circle ringing.

Questioning the success rate of any one element of the many recruitment routes is just a symptom of the range of problems existing in "ringing" today.

I doubt anyone has a handle on how many people have got into FCR from chiming or handbell ringing or chime bars or whacking tin cans with a stick, but then, non-one knows how many people are joining FC bands by ANY route, or how many are leaving the exercise and why.

The place of chiming in the history of tower bells is indisputable, but it is constantly rubbished by the dyed-in-the-wool conservatives who "defend" the inner sancta of FCR.

Anyone that truly has an open mind should be asking loudly, "why isn't CC opening its arms to all tower bell towers?" This is the C21st!

Graham, you pose some interesting questions, but this discussion theme isn't a suitable place to expand. Ringing World printed some of my thoughts in 19/5/17(p.503) re CRAG; 24/7/20(p.731) re prejudice; and 30/10/20(p.1066) re myths about chiming. Thanks for your open mind!

First check-chimed and swing-chimed a small estate bell in late 1950s; learned the uses of the bell, including start/stop work in the fields, fire alarm, assembly, etc (can't remember them now bit I think there were 4-5. First swung-chiming of a full circle bell, (and a dip into the tower copy of RW), also in the late 1950s but after the estate bell.

Yes and Yes

Fine, I agree it's not a "major, missed source of recruitment", but to ignore it completely is STILL a missed opportunity! PAX!

I'm no expert but even I have a list of over 700 towers that chime regularly. Dove''s has improved greatly in its present incarnation but it still has only a partial picture of chiming in the UK and abroad, which will expand further as information is added. It went from 7k towers to 16k almost overnight. Yes, there is a prejudice against chiming, and it has existed since around the time CCCBR was formed and CRAG missed the opportunity to correct that for the next few generations! Anything that gets people into bell towers is an entry point to the sounding of tower bells. Anything that exposes people to the insides of belfries is an entry point into full circle ringing, even if, at a chiming tower, it is one stage removed from someone walking into a full-circle tower directly. People only get into full circle ringing if they have an interest in sounding tower bells. Ostracising chimers and their towers from recruitment initiatives continues to shoot ourselves in the foot!

John, of course I agree as regards a frame being an awkward intro to the physical side of change ringing tower bells full circle, but a frame easily allows one person to demonstrate the sequencing required in change-ringing and method-ringing in a way impossible on full circle bells without a band of helpers. In the latter example, perhaps half a dozen visitors can be enlightened, (or more in a larger tower), but in my small home Ringing Room there is space for over a dozen visitors to experience the changes and methods demonstrated by the one person in the former example. When we were full-circle ringing there was barely safe room for 6 people to sit out. If someone received=s sufficient explanation to follow, say, a blue-line diagram in the hand, they can also follow a similar crib sheet pinned up at the frame. That's how I chime methods - from crib sheets! The question posed had two main strands - how to get the public interested in sounding bells, and how to get them ringing full circle. We need to introduce people to bell ringing by any practicable route, and the on-going dismissal of frame chiming turns a blind eye to the opportunity offered by many hundreds more towers than CCCBR seems minded to utilise for recruitment.