It’s been a number of years since the bells at St Giles Church, Standlake, have been rung regularly. In an attempt to rectify this, when the King’s Coronation was only a few weeks away, a call went out on the village Facebook site in March last year for would-be bellingers to make some noise for the Coronation in May. While this seemed like a tall order, a group of volunteers got together and made up for what we lacked in knowledge and experience with bags of enthusiasm. At this stage we were chiming, but since then we’ve embarked on proper training, initially with weekly sessions with lan and Catrin at Aston, plus at St Peter and St Paul’s, Broadwell, to which we’ve added Saturday morning Ringing School at St Helen’s, Abingdon, St Mary’s, Witney, St Mary’s, Kirtlington, and St Peter and St Paul, Dorchester. We’ve progressed at varying speeds, and with some having achieved our Level 1 in bell handling we thought we would be safe to start ringing for services in our own tower and the Carol Service was our first public performance! We are now ringing regularly for services and, having started with simple rounds, are extending our repertoire with some
“simple” changes with the mysteries of Plain Bob Minor and Grandsire among the many challenges that await us. We’re still brimming with enthusiasm, and a welcome spin-off of the venture has been the group’s friendship and team spirit (together with plenty of ribbing), not to mention the occasional evening at the local pub.
We are very grateful for the expert teaching, patience and encouragement of so many, and special thanks must go to Catrin and lan from Aston (and Hilary, Martin and Phil), who have given up so much of their time over the last ten months.
Alan Mordue