Ringing at Barrow faced an existential crisis last year when three of our key ringers moved out the village, but a couple of visiting bands and a peal came to the rescue. Spotted Barrow, a Facebook page where people moan about the village amazingly had some positive comments after each visit, here’s one from August:

“The church bells sound lovely. What a special sound on a beautiful evening.” 

Followed by a love heart emoji and 73 likes! Not a single moan.

Better still when I posted that we were short of ringers two villagers volunteered to learn! Brilliant! A few others from church joined and although one couldn’t continue we were soon up to five learners.

We started in November and with invaluable help from Sally who comes over from Loughborough each Monday we are now ringing Rounds. The best things is the real enthusiasm and mutual encouragement the learners give each other, sharing tips and videos on WhatsApp between each practice night. One learner has volunteered to be tower keeper and has already been on a course, helped sweep 20kg of dust out the belfry and installed a webcam so we can see what’s going on up there!

As a bonus Sally and I have gained our ART accreditation to teach the first level of “Learning the Ropes”. So thanks a crisis, and thanks to those bands that came and rang so well at Barrow, we’ve doubled our numbers as a result!

Andy Boston
Ringing Master.