Some three years ago saw the arrival in Bingley one Tuesday practice night of John Hares, looking for a friendly tower in which to ring whilst he was spending the week in Leeds away from his home in Ascot. John�s stays in Yorkshire continued for longer than he thought, but finally ended at Christmas 2010 when he retired. Before he left, John promised to arrange a ringing tour round the towers he knew and rang at near Ascot.

Thus it was that a sunny day in early May saw 5 cars making their way to the deep south, for the Bingley Youths ringing trip to Ascot.

The first tower on the Friday evening was Clewer, especially interesting for Claire (nee Clewer). An interesting church with much history linking Clewer to King John, Runnymede and the creation of Windsor Castle. The ringing was not easy, the ropes having long drafts. For one of the band, ringing with the dreaded �slack hands�, the ringing proved too difficult as the rope came off the wheel. Remedial learning has been prescribed! Then to Wokingham, St Paul, for our 2^nd ring of the day where we redeemed ourselves with a much better performance including some very nice Stedman Triples.

Between the towers we discovered how wonderfully green this part of England is, with classically pretty English villages surrounded by seemingly endless forests and roundabouts! We then checked into our hotel for the weekend, The Ely at Yateley, (near Camberly), and settled down in the bar for the rest of the evening.

On Saturday we were joined by the rest of our party, making 16 ringers in total, including friends from Saltaire, Idle, Otley and Guiseley. The convoys across these three southern counties were fun, with the cry of �Are Mary and Gary still behind us?�, resonating throughout the day.

We came across one of the problems of this beautiful scenery, when, trying to travel between two of our towers on Saturday morning, we were stopped by the police because of the huge woodland fire still raging across �Nine Mile Ride�. After at least 6 long diversions, which annoyed Satnav considerably, we managed a 20 minute ring at the church next to Sandhurst College. On Saturday night the dramatic storms helped to douse the remaining fires and we were pleased to hear that the road system reopened on the Sunday.

John had arranged a magnificent tour for us, ringing at nine towers in his local area. All the bells were lovely to ring, although some presented more challenges than others. The history of the churches provided lots of interest to those ringers waiting for their turn to ring. Two of the churches had 10-bell towers, which although sounding beautiful are difficult to get to sound right. We were pleased with our last ring on the Saturday when amongst other good ringing; the team managed a course of Grandsire Caters.

Friday and Saturday evenings saw food and ale consumed amidst good, and increasingly noisy, company. The best provisions stop, however, was at Saturday lunch, when John and his wife, Jan,put on a magnificent buffet for us with all the whistles and bells. We sat in the sun in their awesome garden surrounded by just the tallest and most beautiful set of trees, feeling very spoiled.

It was difficult to get on the road again, but there were bells out there waiting to be rung.

So there we were on this lovely sunny Saturday, winding along the Thames with its picture postcard towns and villages. There were interesting discussions about comparisons between Yorkshire�s rugged scenery and that surrounding us as we travelled between Camberley, Hawley, Easthampstead, Chobham, Staines, and finally Egham. Here we had our lovely 10-bell ring, to perhaps reward both our host John and our hard-working Ringing Master, Jane, for some of our not so perfect ringing earlier in the day.

Most of the band had decided to spend the spare Sunday morning visiting Windsor. Even ardent republicans were overawed by the size and magnificence of Windsor Castle. A small sub-group of 3, including our Master, were standing outside the Church in Windsor village, when the bells started ringing � but �What do I hear? 5 bells in an 8-bell tower?.� No ringer of Jane�s standing could resist the temptation, so thus it was that Jane, Jeffery and Ann found themselves ringing at Windsor with the legendary Frank Blagrove. We believe that Jane has already submitted her application for the vacant post of Mistress of the Queen�s Bells.

Finding bells to ring for 16 visitors on Sunday mornings is not easy as local ringers, naturally, want to concentrate on their own service ringing. John, however, had found us a lovely finale in the stunning 10-bell tower at Warfield, not far from Windsor.

Finally, we hit the road home to Yorkshire. �Are Mary and Gary behind?� Oh no, they are in front!!

Bob Isgrove & Claire Rickets.

Bingley Bellringers'

Lichfield Trip.

12/13 June 2010

On a previous weekend bell ringing trip to the Midlands there was some debate about the best way to get there. Opinion divided between the old A38 route, claimed by some to be straight and easy and the more new fangled motorway system. It was decided that if the A38, running from Bodmin to Mansfield and know as the Devon Expressway, was so good it would be worthy of a bell ringing trip in itself. The route for this year�s weekend trip was thus decided and to

wers were selected which were accessible from the A38 in the Lichfield area.

The trip developed into one where numbers and thoughts of the nation were themes throughout the weekend. We started in Lichfield at St. Chad�s ringing on just 4 bells and finished the trip next day by ringing the wonderful 10 bells of Lichfield Cathedral (a Cathedral with 3 not 2 spires!). In between we took in towers with 6 and 8 bells covering 9 towers over the weekend.

The trip included 19 ringers, mainly from Bingley but with friends from Ilkley, Idle, Saltaire, Guiseley and Otley. The tower of St. Nicholas at Mavesyn Ridware was particularly important to one ringer, he rang there as a youth and has the particular honour of having the Number 2 bell inscribed with his name and that of his wife.

The great advantage of visiting towers off the A38 is all the small, traditionally English villages with picturesque churches, thatchedroofs, roses around the doors and pleasant welcoming local ringers who were happy to let us ring with them before and after their Sunday Services. Lunches and an evening meal were enjoyed at local pubs - 2 meals for �10 was excellent value, but one ringer was a little concerned about the Swan Burgers, believing this pub had special permission to catch, kill and cook the Queen�s swans, that is until the pub name was pointed out to him � The Swan with 2 Necks!

National Pride was a little stretched by the England/USA 1:1 score line on Saturday evening. However, for those of us able to make a brief visit to the National Memorial Arboretum on Sunday, pride was reflected in a far more significant way in this 150 acre site which honours the fallen, recognises sacrifice and fosters pride in our country.

Thanks to Solna Burnham for organising this trip, with excellent ringing, food, drink, accommodation, route planning, time to visit local attractions and good company - high scores all round!

Ann Cossavella

15.6.2010

On behalf of the Bingley Bell Ringers

Bingley Tower trip to the Land of My Fathers

On the first Saturday in May 2012, thirteen of us converged on Ross-on-Wye, the first stage of our bell-ringing trip. Thanks to modern gizmos like sat-nav and mobile phones, we all managed to arrive in time for a picnic lunch on the banks of the Wye. There was even time to purchase some rock-climbers �sticky grip� liquid from an outdoor pursuits shop. Our ringing master, Jane, insists that there is no need to use this secret weapon. She must have naturally sweaty palms � you can check this out if you ever shake hands with her. The stuff came out of the bottle rather fast leaving both Claire and me sticking to everything (bell-ropes, steering wheels, wineglasses) for the rest of the day. The 8 bells of Ross sounded delightful though. In fact all the bells we rang during our trip sounded lovely.

Tower two was in the graceful town of Monmouth. The ringing chamber was a mezzanine floor at the back of the church (great for watching weddings) with a beautiful floor to ceiling stained glass window. The ringing chamber had originally been much higher up so the ropes are now very long draught indeed, rather different from our home tower.

Then it was on to Usk, where we mingled (wearing our fleeces and jeans) with departing wedding guests in their finery as we made our way to the tower for the last ring of the day. Afterwards there was just time for a swift drink down at Cardiff Bay for those who wanted one, before making base camp at a Travelodge and meeting up for evening meal in the Carvery.

On Sunday morning there was great consternation when we realised that breakfast did not start until 9am, the very time we were due to start ringing. I have observed that bell-ringers do not like ringing with empty stomachs. Between McDonalds and self-catering we were mostly refuelled and in time to ring prior to the morning service at Whitchurch.

Then we drove to Radyr and rang prior to their morning service as well. Their ringing master advised learners like me to avoid the first three bells as they were �rather flighty�. Naturally this made everyone other than Jane nervous of them as well. Some of Radyr�s ringers who were there commented that it was lovely to have a civilised ring with not a lot of shouting! (We�d always thought we got shouted at quite a lot....).

Our next tower was Rumney, a small and charming old Parish Church with just 6 bells. We had been asked to bypass the main entrance and go straight round the back to the tower door. The bishop was visiting that morning and they obviously didn�t want him meeting riff-raff like us.

The weather had become better and better as the morning went on and by lunchtime, when we were picnicking on Llandaff Green, it was sunny and warm. Llandaff Cathedral is massive and has a new(ish) ring (1992) of 12 bells. They are beautifully behaved bells even for a learner and they were judged the best sounding of the whole trip by our only non-ringing member of the party. We were taken up to the belfry to see the bells which were �up� at the time so a bit scary. Jane was in �anxious mother� mode (�Don�t touch anything!�).

Having successfully rung on 12 bells we retired to a welcoming tea shop to celebrate with a large portion of cake each and copious amounts of tea before our final ring of the day at St John�s in Cardiff city centre (10 bells). St John�s� ringing master told us she�d been ringing for a wedding at Whitchurch a few hours earlier and the rope on bell 4 had broken. That was the same bell I�d been ringing only that morning � instant guilt. I prefer to think the ladybirds had been eating it. There were infestations of ladybirds in most of the towers we visited � it made a nice change from our fly problem at Bingley. Sunday evening saw us eating in an Italian restaurant overlooking the waterfront at Cardiff Bay, then an early night for most.

Monday morning dawned wet. We were not too dispirited as a friendly coach driver had recommended breakfast at a nearby Wetherspoons. This was a great success and we advanced on Caerphilly with full stomachs. There we found a newly decorated white ringing chamber which was very bright even though there was torrential rain outside. Fortunately it had reduced to drizzle by the time we left again.

We drove to Blaenavon, a world heritage site due to its industrial past, with the former ironworks. The church was small and chapel-like with a unique cast-iron font and iron grave-markers. The 8 bells were very light and quick and were coveted by Jane who would happily have smuggled them home with us.

Our final destination was over the mist-covered mountain to Abergavenny and the 10 bells of St Mary�s, reputedly the best ring in the whole of Wales. They are not the heaviest we rang (Cardiff�s were slightly heavier) but they felt it, or maybe we were just flagging after three days and eleven towers. They sounded great, deep and mellifluous, but by the time we squeezed back down the very narrow spiral staircase, most of us were rather tired.

My first Tower Trip was a really enjoyable and companionable weekend, and many thanks go from all of us to Jane, Bob and Claire for the marvellous organisation which made it all happen. We did consider leaving Claire in �the land of her fathers� but decided to bring her home to Yorkshire after all.

Jane 3.