I was 15 when I rang my first peal, scoring it at the first attempt. It was on Saturday 9th March 1985 on the glorious bells of St Margaret’s Leicester, 5088 changes of 4 spliced Surprise Major. With the 40th anniversary approaching fast I really wanted to repeat it on the exact day but I was less confident second time around.

Having stopped peal ringing and indeed ringing in general about 2009 due to pregnancy and returning over 10 years later on a much lesser scale, I was perhaps only managing a practice night every other week. Since the start of 2023 when our daughter Aoife took an interest in learning to ring, it got me back into ringing in the same way as I was in my mid teens, going out ringing at least 5 times a week. Towards the middle of last year with the influence (and keenness) of Lewis I was talked into attempting a peal for my upcoming anniversary, so in May I started ringing peals attempts again to ease me in gradually and I had scored three as 9th March 2025 approached.

I would love to have attempted the anniversary peal with the same band, bells, composition etc but this wasn’t possible due to a few of the original band sadly either being no longer with us or they no longer ringing peals. Thankfully last Sunday on the fantastic eight at Claybrooke we set off and scored. https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1830923

The only thing I would have changed was that I wish my dad (Malcolm Wade) and my daughter Aoife would have been able to ring in the attempt but I’m sure my dad would not have agreed, and Aoife had other plans.

Talking of which just to include a photo with this write up Aoife rang her first peal today (a week later) and she made less mistakes than I did in my first attempt. Only another 750 to match me.

Gail Harrison