Talk like a Pirate Day

Reasons to ring?

A Norfolk ringer has asked fellow members of our association for reasons why we might ring. She is hoping to encourage her village to get behind a bell restoration project and by providing examples of the ways in which bells might be used as a community resource, hopes to ignite some enthusiasm.  A great idea.

Of course there are the obvious reasons why we ring – a call to worship (but if you are not a practising Christian, why would that matter to you?), weddings, funerals, anniversaries, special birthdays, civic occasions (a platinum jubilee every so often), to thank someone who has made a significant contribution to ringing etc.  But what other reasons have people rung quarters or peals for? 

Ever helpful, the NDAR shared their footnotes. In 2021, I rang to celebrate World Peace Day – a newly named method, Give Peace a Chance Delight Major. I wanted to name a method to mark the occasion and asked others how to go about it.  Picking an unnamed one from the library seemed a missed opportunity to create something new, so someone suggested I tweak an existing method. I am not much of a tweaker but by a happy coincidence I discovered that no-one had so far named or rung a 18 at lead end version of Friendly Delight Major – so I nabbed it before anyone else.  We rang a quarter on-line, a scratch band of people who have never met each other in real life.

Other reasons to ring? In Norfolk we ring to celebrate the opening of a shopping centre, to congratulate football teams on their promotion  (sometimes bi-annually because what goes up can also come down), as a compliment to a band who were pipped at the post when they missed naming an unnamed method when another tower got there first ( by a matter of hours, not days), for International Chocolate Pudding Day, to celebrate the fact that the grass in the churchyard has grown, All Fool’s Day, rear end shunts and Talk like a Pirate Day.  No doubt the calls were made in the appropriate vernacular – Avast ye, treble’s going… People have said that I would ring to mark the opening of the envelope, and I would if the bells fitted easily into my hands.

So many reasons to ring.  We offer it as a service to our village. Make a donation to our bell fund and we will ring especially for you. We will even provide you with a certificate. Some people take us up on the offer.  A 70^th wedding anniversary is a real money spinner!

Come to think of it, our village public loos are currently being refurbished. If the wind is from the north east, then our bells can be heard from the improved facilities. What might be a suitable method?