On Sunday 25th January a rare event occurred – we had 9 ringers on a Sunday morning – but rarer still, the rope on the 4th bell snapped whilst our youngest trainee was ringing it to call changes on 8. Samuel ducked out of the way, but it didn’t scare him. This is just one of those things – ropes break eventually – wear and tear. However, to make the event a little rarer the bell stood itself. So.. how do you ring down a bell (to make it safe) if there isn’t a rope attached? Well, luckily for us the 4th bell is very accessible as it is by a walkway around the bells so one sure-footed ringer (yours truly) grabbed the wheel with one hand (keeping myself well out of the path of the bell) and pushed, rocking the bell on the stay before pushing it off and moving well away. Newton did the rest (well Gravity that he discovered); 3 minutes later the bell had rung itself down and we carried on ringing minus the 4th.
24 hours later and a spare rope has been attached to the bell and the broken one has a new long splice and is ready to go back next time I feel like wandering up to the bells. Usually a rope will break where it goes through the garter hole (hole in the bell wheel), but in this instance it snapped where it goes through the pulley block and (coincidentally perhaps) a nail came down with the rope into the ringing room. The nail, remains of recent work to increase the area opened by our sound control we think, must have been left on the floor when we tidied up. Whoops!
