Narrow Way

Saturday was our bellringers quarterly meeting, which was held in a small village tucked away under the edge of Bredon Hill, down in the south of the county - near where the Cotswolds meet the River Avon.

We set the satnav to the postcode of the hall and off we went. We found the village, no problem, but we could not find the village hall! As we drove along a particularly narrow lane, we encountered a gentleman, who was enjoying a quiet stroll. In desperation, we stopped and asked where we might find our destination.  He scratched his head, thought deeply and then scratched his head some more.
"Well, you must have driven past it to get here!" was his final verdict, "Follow the road round, and its on the right just before you get to the top of the big hill." 
We followed his instructions, eyes peering past every shrub and tree, in our desire to locate our elusive venue.
This time we spotted the cars in the car park. We had not noticed it at the first time of passing, as the hall adjoins a house.
At one time the village hall had been the village school.
In the main room, there is a poignant memorial to the pupils who went off to fight in the First World War, and did not return.

Following a brief business meeting, we moved on to our Annual Striking Competition, which. by coincidence was being held at the same time as the National Twelve-bell Striking Competition in Cambridge , where the elite of the ringing world would be attempting to wrestle the crown from  the regular winners - Birmingham.

Last year Inkberrow did the double in our own local six bell competition winning both the method and call change shields. Sadly, Inkberrow were one of the many towers who failed to raise a band to defend their titles.
Unfortunately, June is a time when lots of exciting and interesting events happen.
What could be MORE exciting than a bellringing competition? Unsurprisingly lots of things! The organizers like a summer date so that we can sit outside and enjoy the sunshine while the ringing takes place. One of the other branches hold their competition in winter, and had to cancel due to snow - so you really can't win!

Three members of our tower were present, so we got roped in to form a scratch band to make up the numbers.
We made our way along a narrow footpath,
that felt like it was excavated from the inside of a hedge,
to the churchyard.
Fortunately, we had a member of the home tower to give us some tips!
Unfortunately, a member of the team went home before anyone told him he was supposed to be ringing with us.
Fortunately, we snaffled a replacement from a call-change band.
Unfortunately, as we weren't used to ringing together we had different ideas about what speed we should ring.






The access up to the ringing chamber is steep and narrow. It begins with a spiral with very shallow stairs, before you climb a straight steep narrow staircase. When I say narrow I mean less-than-shoulder-width narrow! Someone declared the access to be worse than Pershore Abbey. It is possibly more awkward, but a lot less scary!!!

At the allotted time we prepared to clamber up the tower.
"Ring a practice piece of around 4 minutes" we were advised.
We rang our practice piece. Then we realised that we didn't know how long we were supposed to ring for our test piece. We hadn't intended ringing so had not looked at the rules
"I will call down and ask." I decided, wondering how on earth they would hear me, but relying on the fact that if nothing happened someone would investigate.
I opened the tower to the staircase and called out
"Hello...?" 
No response.
I went down a few steps and tried again, a little louder this time.
"HELLO!"
This time I got a response
"Is everything OK?
"How many changes do we ring?"
"120"
"Cheers!"

Then we couldn't remember if it was one or two whole pulls on the treble, so we did one, followed by another, just in case!

We rang our test piece, which actually wasn't as good as the practice.
After all the bands had rung, we returned down a narrow footpath to the village hall to hear the judge pass his verdicts

Needless to say, the pieces of ringing I heard from national competition in Cambridge were far better than any of our ringing! Birmingham won the National competition, again, with Eckington and Pershore winning the shields in our local competition. I think our local ringers understand sharing better than the Brummies!