Like many towers over the last few years Whetstone was running short on band members. We were extremely grateful to our regular visitors for support at practice nights and for service ringing, but as health concerns, house moves, and other personal challenges happened we lost numbers, both local and visitors. John Kinchin and I had been hatching a plan back in 2019 to train some new locals, I’d teach the handling, then hand them over to him at practice night for learning the rest. John was onboard with me learning the “ART Way” of teaching as he knew it would help having connections with other local teachers – how right he was!

I couldn’t find an ART M1 during late 2019 that I could attend, and then the strangeness of 2020 threw all courses out of the window for a while. Early 2022 John began teaching young “A” the grandson of one of our ringers who was full of enthusiasm but had to be home early for bed, however it was clearly quite tiring for John. We were both excited for me to be able to get booked on to the October 2022 course.

Sadly John’s health failed last year and while he got to see me attend and we had a good chat about it after during a hospital visit, he didn’t get to help me put the plan into action and is much missed since his passing. So, never one to do anything by halves, I began my mission to replenish our numbers! “I’ll get myself two learners and hope one sticks”, I thought.

Back in early November I put out some local Facebook information about ringing in the village, the Ring For The King details, and invited people to get in touch. Several did, out of whom 2 came forward to learn, Pat and Gina, both ladies from a slightly older demographic. We started lessons in the 3rd week of November teaching them as a pair. This has worked really well for them as they’ve had the mutual support of each other through their personal tricky patches.

The ART course helped me have a clear structure and steps to break down what can be a complex movement into manageable chunks. Having the support of my ART mentor filled a void, and visiting towers where others from the same course were teaching gave us all some mutual support. Not forgetting the wonderful WhatsApp group as we all compare notes.

Word spread and learner-Gina found a lapsed ringer, David, who also came to join us and has been happy to fine tune his rusty skills with us, adding in that my children asked to learn, and two other younger siblings of another ringer, so now I’ve got 4 learners on the cusp of their Level 1 certificates, and 3 new 9 year olds I just started a couple weeks ago! Busy busy.

While 5 years ago our practice nights would have been full of Stedman Triples and Surprise 8 with an average band age of over 60, in 2022 it became that we were lucky to have 5 ringers for a method, and it has been a rarity to get all 8 going. The future looks brighter though, we may not be ringing anything fancy for the King in May, but we WILL be ringing!

Thank you to Moira, my ART M1 tutor, as well as Becki, my mentor, and all the other M1 attendees for the support on this journey. I did my M2F last month and enjoyed the ART conference in Birmingham 11-12th March, so onwards and upwards we go!

Sarah Catherall, Whetstone

A Learner’s View

Towards the end of last year, and despite many doubts about my abilities, I answered an appeal from Sarah Catherall for bell ringing trainees. Sarah gave much encouragement despite me pointing out that I was definitely no ‘spring chicken’ at 73. Three and a half months later I am able to ring a bell without too many hiccups. I can also stand a bell 10 times in a row at handstroke enabling another tick in my Ringers Progress Logbook. I am now attempting rounds and ways of learning call change sequences that are also being introduced by Sarah. Any achievements are all thanks to her patient training, support and ‘can do’ attitude together with the encouragement of other tower members who have been so friendly. Sarah has taken her learners to Guild meetings and practise at other towers where we’ve found absolute positivity, support and lovely people. My only regret is that I never had the opportunity to get involved when I was younger but on the bright side I would tell anyone who is interested that as long as you are fit you are never too old.

Gina Sampson