Over the first weekend of July, Desford was filled with characters from throughout history. The village was celebrating its new local history trail by having the grand unveiling of the information boards during a 2-day Heritage Festival. Re-enactment groups from many different periods of history came together to fill the village – Victorian beggars rubbed shoulders with Tudor ladies, and Civil War soldiers met their Second World War American Army equivalents.

Always keen to be involved in village events, as soon as the bellringers were asked if we would like to be involved, plans started taking shape.

We borrowed the Guild Demonstration bell, which we had in use in the south aisle of the church, and a rota of helpers allowed us to have it available for ‘Have a Go at Bellringing’ for all-comers throughout the two days of the festival. This was especially popular with children, but plenty of adults also joined in too. Stickers were offered to all who had a go (even the adults!), and everyone seemed to have a good time. We found the demo bell particularly useful as it is easy to see what the bell is doing in relation to what is happening at the rope end. I’m sure many visitors had not realised quite how complicated ringing actually is.

On the Saturday morning we also gave a demonstration of bellringing. Thanks to Mark, our technical wizard, we were able to have cameras in the ringing room and in the belfry, with the footage being beamed to the big screens in the church – normally used for projecting the hymn words during services.

As soon as I had heard that there were going to be re-enactment groups throughout the village, I had the idea that it would be great to join in and dress up ourselves. As this year is also the 110^th anniversary of our bells being cast, it seemed fitting for us to dress up in 1912 style. So for the demonstration, six of us sourced, begged, borrowed and bought suitable clothing – although we didn’t go as far as wearing corsets!

As our band has more women than men, it was not a surprise that all six of the demonstration ringers were female – which was also fitting as this year also marks the 110^th anniversary of the first ladies’ peal. Desford also has links to that peal, as one of the ladies who rang – Lillian Willson – also rang in the first peal on our bells in 1913.

I didn’t keep count of how many people we interacted with over the weekend, but everyone we spoke to and who had a go on the bell learned something new about bellringing. A few people seemed to be interested in learning more, so we pointed them in the direction of their local towers, and we even managed to get a new recruit for ourselves at Desford!

Rebecca Banner