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Readers will generally understand the danger of disturbing a bell that is standing or the danger of members of the public "crowding" in the ringing chamber when the band is ringing. To judge from some recent events, members of the public do not share this respect for the latent power of a bell and the danger of the uncontrolled bell-rope. Two of the events I have in mind were both weddings.
In the first case, despite a notice saying clearly, "Danger - Bells are up" and a form barricading the ringing chamber from the congregation and the nave of the church, a small girl was allowed by her parents to crawl into the chamber and there ran about touching the bell ropes. As soon as the child was seen she was escorted out and handed over to the parents. The parental response was rather disagreeable, almost as though the request to remove the child was unnecessarily officious - that is until the danger was explained.
The second case, and in a different church, was a "pushy" photographer who stood in the midst of the circle of ringers to get a particular view of the happy couple. What a picture it would have made if he had pushed just a little too hard and our captain had not had the good sense to call "Stand"! Imagine a picture taken as the photographer was whipped feet first through the gillet hole or a self-portrait of him hanging by the neck half way to the ceiling!
Even though readers will be aware of the need to treat the bells and ropes with respect, I suspect the third event will come as a bit of a surprise even to some of them. A few weeks ago the bells had been stood and after some time lapse, one of the stays broke and there followed a doleful "bonging" as the bell let itself down. Fortunately the rope did not twirl round any of the other ropes or it could have been much worse. It must be a rare event that a stay would break with the bell at rest and surely the vast majority of cases must be caused by dynamic force. But it happened! It would be nice to record that this event took place during a boring and over-long sermon but miracles don't come to order.
In an attempt to keep the thoughtless out of the ringing chamber we thought it might be better to have a graphic warning rather than just a written notice so we approached a local lady, Gwen Tuck who has considerable artistic talent and a good sense of humour, to make an "off-putting cartoon".
C R Dent, Beckley and Peasmarsh
(A colour version is available and was printed in ‘Look To’ – the Eastern Division newsletter – in January/February 2007.)