Lockdown led us all to find new things to do with our time.  Some people bought dogs, others read books.  I made ‘bat-bells’ …

The top ones are mine, the middle ones I don’t know the origins of, you can buy the bottom ones: https://ebells.co.uk/ .

I have spent many hours becoming vaguely proficient at ringing methods ‘two handed’, initially with everybody’s online bot-friend Wheatley (https://ringingroom.com/ ) …

… and then, as the social distancing rules were relaxed, with real handbells and real ringers (most often with Philip Graves, Alison and Judith Godfrey), initially in car parks, garages and back gardens and more recently in warmer, more comfortable, places. 

Inconveniently, our conductor moved away (in fact, it is possible Philip moved away purely to escape the regular torture we were imposing on him in the early days/weeks/couple of years) but very fortunately Tim (Peverett) has taken us under his wing and we continue to gradually improve.  You can see the evidence on bellboard…

You’ll see that we are not the only people ringing handbells in Leicestershire – well done the 446 Welford Road band but ‘shame on you!’ to the band that submitted the 1^st January ‘performance’ – you could at least have taken real handbells with you on the big wheel rather than ringing on thumbs!

Why are there so few people ringing handbells (or at least so few ringing quarters or peals)? I really don’t know (answers on a postcard please) but I’m hooked. It’s a very different challenge to tower bells and I find it something of a ‘black art’ – I really can’t adequately describe how I keep two bells doing what they need to do, particularly when ringing Surprise. I don’t know how much better I can get (the original objective was a quarter of Bob Minor but things have moved on…) but I know I won’t get to the standard of the superstar handbell ringers … watch these videos to see what is possible on handbells!

Robert Watson

p.s. I’m perfectly happy to ringing tunes on handbells too, at Christmas at least.

Editor’s note: Robert’s band have recently scored a quarter peal of Bristol Major in hand – a fantastic achievement! https://bb.ringingworld.co.uk/view.php?id=1634828