It is the holiday season and the Cole’s headed for Cornwall last week for a (well needed!) holiday. In between visiting the Lost gardens of Heligan (we found them!) and the Eden Project we visited former Islip ringer Rachel Holt and guess what we ended up doing? When bellringers go on tour, we go ringing!!#
Rachel took us to one of her new regular towers in the village of St German’s which is an 8 bell tower that rings call changes (Devon style) so a new experience for us! After ringing up on the back 5 (fairly fast) we rang down again (slower) and then back up again on 7. We rang call changes (they called “up” as I do :D) but there were some differences.. they gave a warning “prepare to stand” or something like that… before calling stand; calls were made not the preceding handstroke (as we do) but 2 handstrokes before – which gives you more time to think before the change. The sally is called the “fillet” .. something fishy about that.. and when you start ringing up, instead of one bell ringing, then two bells, then three etc, they all swing their bell once then pull hard to check the bell so the first the neighbours hear is all the bells in rounds.
They asked me to call some changes towards the end and Sarah led down getting them to miss and catch (our style).
It was a fun evening and nice to try a different style of ringing.
Anthony Cole