It all started with a visit to the French Market in Coleshill on a bright but very cold day last April. The tower at the church was open and on our way back down we paused in the belfry and chatted to the bellringers, and quite fancied having a go at bell ringing. We are local so decided to learn at St Giles. We were made very welcome by the lovely ringers and have really enjoyed learning to ring. I am a very slow student; Isabella is much better than me, but nobody seems to mind, and it is great fun. We are so hooked that we often go to St Cuthberts at Shustoke on Tuesday nights as well as St Giles on Thursday evenings. I am not at all musical, but you don't have to be. I now know that there is a great community on bell ringers across most of the country; and when we went up to Stirling a few weeks ago Quentin, the Tower Captain, put us in touch with the bell ringers and we rang in the church there, which was lovely. But as well as being great fun, what I absolutely love is the knowledge that the bells we are ringing are hundreds of years old, and that for the last three of four hundred years people have been ringing out the same bells across the landscape, making the same sounds. To me, that is amazing.
Olwyn
Olwyn
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