Ringing World 5176 (9 July 2010)

Front Cover: The Empire Strikes Back:
English Heritage issues a warning and tells DAC bell advisors not to be interested in bellringing - by Mark Regan
It’s 10th June 2010 and we meet at St George’s Southwark for a DAC Advisors’ Conference organised by the Church Buildings Council (CBC).
We gather in the smart new undercroft meeting room and are given badges and loads of paper. David Cawley is back on the scene and I sit at the back of the room with David and George Dawson. What an interesting day it will be.

The Kennet and Avon Canal 200th anniversary celebration ringing including the Caen Flight ‘longest location’ handbell peal
by Christine Sworder & David Hacker
The Kennet and Avon Canal which runs across the north of the Salisbury Diocese reaches the 200th Anniversary of its completion this year having been officially opened on 28th December 1810. This canal joined the ports of Bristol and London, Bristol having become a very important sea port by the end of the 1700’s, and it avoided the very treacherous sea journey between London and Bristol via Lands End.

Ringing in the Millennium – ten years on by Chris Rogers
Many ringers will remember that prior to the Millennium a grant of £3 million was awarded by the Millennium Commission towards the restoration and augmentation of rings of bells in the run-up to 1st January 2000. For reasons that will become clear, it was only at the end of 2009 that it was possible to wind up the limited company that had been set up to receive and distribute the grant. This therefore is an appropriate time to look back on this now completed and very successful project.

Letters
Auto winding mechanisms - Malcolm S. Loveday
Child protection - Colin Spreadbury
Sarah’s Law - Alan T. Reade
Review of the National 12 Bell Contest ... pasties! - Phil Tremain
Just ask the Royal Navy - Elizabeth Champion
True origins of the pasty - the last word ... - Lester Yeo

Obituary
The Revd Roger Fry

Former Twerton tower captain returns to his roots
Saturday, 15th May was an emotional day for those attending the Twerton St Michael’s Bellringers’ reunion. Alan Lee, the former tower captain who taught many youngsters in the 1950s and 60s to ring, returned to his ‘home tower’ 56 years after ringing his first quarter peal there. And all this was thanks to lots of detective work by one of his ringing pupils, Nicki Williams (née Goundry).

Wedding of Matthew Holbrook and Weihong Pan, Amport, 13th May 2010
A truly remarkable bright sunny day was shared by some 60 guests at Amport St Mary’s, not more than a stone’s throw from The Ringing World’s Andover office on Saturday, May 15th. It was a ringers’, wedding, albeit with a special Oriental flavour when Weihong Pan, known to us all as ‘Pam’ and originally from Jiangsu province in China, was married to Matthew Holbrook in a service of blessing conducted by the Revd Christopher Pettet.

The Dorothy L Sayers Society Young Ringer’s Award 2010
This year’s award, to a student member of The Ladies’ Guild of Change Ringers, was presented to Felicity Lister – a Daventry ringer. Fliss has received a bursary to attend the Keele Ringing Course at Keele University from July 8th – 10th and will be a member of the Stedman group with her husband, Dan.

Thought for the week
When I first learnt to ring I soon started going to local branch ringing meetings. This would have been from about 1947 onwards, in the Bristol area and later in Cambridgeshire, Lancashire and Kent. In those days, despite the challenges posed by rationing, the teas were always memorable! Sometimes there were remarkable incidents, as for instance at Ickleton near Cambridge. It was a gloomy day in mid-winter – 1948 I think. Power cuts happened regularly. There was one that day and after ringing we huddled together in a transept for the service, using the fading daylight to see our books. The hymn was Old A&M 268: “Ye servants of the Lord”. As we started, unaccompanied, on the second verse: “Let all your lamps be bright” – the lights came on!