Blame It On The M5

Many ambitious plans are hatched in the pub after ringing. However, this particular absurdity was begun as DH and I journeyed down the M5 to Devon, way back in the summer of 2017!

I cannot remember exactly what prompted the debate. Was it the sight of a passing tower or spire or the continuation of a previous conversation?
I just remember having this moment of inspiration and saying

"Wouldn't it be a good idea to ring a Quarter Peal on the back three bells, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War?"
My ever-practical husband, knowing that this proposal would inevitably include him, replied
"And who is going to ring the third bell?"
We both knew who would be up for such madness - the Tower Keeper. (He refuses to be a Steeple Keeper as we have a tower, not a steeple...)

As we travelled I sent an text outlining the proposal.

Just over ten minutes later and I had a band - for a Quarter Peal in sixteen months time!
Nothing like a bit of advance planning...

Prior to 1971, there were only three bells in our tower.
If the bells had been rung as a signal that the war was over, then it would have been the sound of 'Three Blind Mice' that rang out across the farmland,
that competed with the sigh of the trees in the copse behind the church
and the babble of the insignificant River Arrow,
as it flowed on its way through rural east Worcestershire, to join the Alne and Avon
and eventually the Severn.

To my mind, if we were going to ring for the Centenary of the end of the war, then shouldn't we produce a sound as close as possible to that which would have been heard back in 1918?

Sixteen months passed.
It is Remembrance Sunday 2018. We attend morning service at the daughter church. The band gather to ring, and we take photographs to mark this momentous occasion. After some general ringing, the rest of the bellringers depart for lunch, leaving us to ring 'Three Blind Mice' and variations thereof.
It was one of the most physically demanding and mind-numbing quarters I have rung. I think we were all hugely relieved to reach the end and know that we had achieved our goal.

Later I looked through the entries of ringing to mark the centenary of the end of WWI on BellBoard.
Some rang specially named methods like Armistice Surprise Major or Battle’s Over Doubles. Others rang a 100 call changes or a length of 1918 changes. We chose to ring on the number of bells that were in the church 100 years ago.

Regardless of what method or number of changes a team rang, what mattered most was that they joined in with this international ringing event, to celebrate peace and the end to four years of unimaginably bloody carnage 100 years ago.
A pity the peace didn't last.