Bill Woodyatt

William H. Woodyatt, who has died in his ninety-seventh year, was the last ringer from the old band of Bromyard ringers, who rang together from around 1930 until the 1990s. Bromyard is a market town halfway between Worcester and Hereford, which until the fifties had a population of about a thousand. Bill told a memorable account of how the band came together. The future ringers were in the Town Band, and performing at the Vicarage Garden Party. The euphonium player had imbibed too much cider, and declined gracefully among the music stands, whereupon the vicar banned the band. But, there were no ringers, so some of the young men took that up instead, teaching themselves to handle the bells and to ring methods. Because they were self-taught, they gave their own names to things, which led to some interesting moments when they began to ring with other people.

Most of the band stayed in Bromyard all their lives, but Bill went off in the war to work for the Gloster Aircraft Company in Cheltenham, and stayed there for some years after, ringing at Leckhampton. In 1948, he went to Argentina to assemble Meteor Jet fighters manufactured in the U.K. and sold to the Argentine government. He would recount how a group of them had special transport from their hotel to work every day and were treated almost like royalty. The Bromyard band saw him off with the first peal on the bells by a local band, which was also their first peal for a number of them, Bill included, and the first as conductor by Tom Cooper, the tower captain. It was said of Tom, who was the town barber, that if you mentioned either ringing or cricket in his shop that you went away with much less hair than you intended.

Bill continued to ring occasional peals (Grandsire Triples at Leckhampton in 1962 for the Gloucester and Bristol Association and Plain Bob Major at Bromyard in 1971, but no trace of his favourite Stedman). After he returned to Bromyard he remained a faithful and very skilful member of the band until his ninetieth birthday. After that, he listened carefully to what was going on from his house near the church, noting particularly that he thought the bells were rung too fast on Sunday, when respect demanded a more solemn pace. The last time he went out anywhere was last summer, to a reception at which he was presented with a badge to mark his long membership of the Hereford Diocesan Guild.

The old band, as we tend to think of them, were a very closed and settled group of men, who achieved a great deal in their own place. Notably, the old anticlockwise six was augmented to eight and rehung in 1968, and ringing was maintained at a good standard over a long period of time. When the band began to develop new ringers, Bill was a very encouraging mentor and took enormous pride in ‘the boys’, as he called Andrew Hodgson and Daniel Jones. Bill’s passing marks the end of an era, as well as the loss of a kind, gentle and very cheerful man.

John Clements
and David Parker