Ringing Forums

I sympathise with people who have been the subject of unwanted / malicious calls etc through having their contact details published, but we now live in a Society where, perhaps, we need to accept some irritations as the price we pay for the wonderful communications systems we now have. I prepared a broadsheet-style handout about my home tower's bells some5 years ago which gets updated every so often. Its handed out / left in Church / distributed amongst some local neighbour businesses etc and it includes my contact details. Yes, I do get occasional junk mail and nuisance calls / spam but these have all been of an ilk that "everyone" now gets. I've received nothing untoward from the hundreds of paper copies of my newsletter that are "out there". Peter Southeran's experience / observations match mine and, I suspect, almost everyone else's.

Are we looking at this from the wrong end of the problem? Surely we need to take any and all opportunities to get people into ringing. Once any newcomers reach the standard of competent rounds (and call changes?) then please do let more people start. There should not be any pressure to bring those first people to methods - they will know when they want to move forward.

Richard, is your definition of "cotter pin" correct? When the term is used with a bicycle it's the funny-shaped rods that set the pedals firmly on the shaft, without relative movement. Many cotter pins on cranks (and also certain nuts) have split pins as well to ensure that the cotter pin (or nut) cannot become detached. The modern articulated chiming hammers at my home tower are held together with split pins (not "cotter pins") because the components need to move relative to each other.

Sadly, JH has a good point.

The method for providing fire protection of penetrations through floors and walls is well established and is of two forms - firstly fully sealing around, say, a pipe, with fully non-combustible material, and secondly, using intumescent materials with or without collapsing containment.

When you need the hole in the ceiling (e.g. for a bell rope), a double-walled tubular sheath containing intumescents can be used. The intumescent is between the concentric tubes forming the cylinder and the inner wall collapses / deforms with the passage of hot products of combustion, thereby closing the opening and stopping the propagation of the fire to the upper compartment / room / chamber.

Sadly, my home tower does not practice what I preach!. I also recommended intumescent strips around all the trap doors etc and the use of intumescent sealant to fill the many gaps between the floorboards in the intermediate and bell chambers. These were not progressed for unknown reasons.

The lovely Victorian Gothic doors have large gaps around the leaves and there more intumescent strips were recommended but not pursued.

The Risk Assessment for a church MUST ALSO include the tower and the specialist equipment therein (the bells etc), but how many Steeple Keepers ensure that it is?

With the vast majority of towers only having a single means of access / escape, and with the individual compartments / chambers / rooms usually having no more than lancet "windows", the most serious risk to bell ringers is fire near or in the tower below them. I've never met another bell-ringer who has considered this.

Please remember that smoke and other products of combustion can get through small gaps as well as sound can. We don't think about fire protection in towers and history can show some destroyed through easy propagation of fire up the chimney that is a bell tower. Ideally, all penetrations through the floors ought to be fire resisting but how on earth that can be achieved is problematic. I can see the benefits of providing sound flaps through floors to aid audibility in ringing rooms but anything that can be left open through forgetfulness or neglect WILL BE.

Those living near the coast needing pulley blocks for rope guides can obtain smaller sizes from yacht chandlers. Larger sizes - e.g. for the ground pulley below the wheel - would most easily be sourced from a specialist supplier through the foundry or bell-hanger.

Might not Jonathan Frye's post be submitted to the Ringing World as the basis of an article for publication on this point? "Heavier" bells are daunting for ringers who have never been guided as to appropriate technique. The first time many ringers experience the problems is on a 'tower outing' on which few present actually have enough experience on heavier bells to give clear instruction.

"Community engagement" seems to carry weight in bids for money for bells - might it also be a useful concept for inclusion in any submission for recognition?

When "our" keys went missing it was in connection with the activities of contractors etc carrying out works in the tower and to the spire, inspections etc. The major work on the spire included installing a permanent steel laddered access route up inside from the bell chamber. The access platform for that is close above two bells so it is a nuisance and an additional health and safety concern when inspecting / maintaining those bells. Bell ringers have no legitimate reason to use this access into the spire - it's prime purpose being for future inspection / maintenance of the spire. However, there is nothing preventing someone with legitimate access to the bell chamber then going off "on a frolic of their own", (as the lawyers say), and ascending to the upper levels. I have recommended that the lowest ladder be provided with, at minimum, a lockable ladder-board, for which no bell-ringer would ever get their hands on the key - but nothing has been done. Has anyone else come a cross a similar security issue / arrangement, please?

Does any one person actually know how many copies of the keys actually exist for your tower? What happens when a key is thought to be "missing"? Since I was "volunteered" to be Steeple Keeper at my home tower keys issued from the Vestry/Sacristy into the temporary keeping of no-ringers have occasionally failed to return. Whilst the responsibility for providing security for the tower and it's contents lies clearly outside the responsibility of the ringers, the day to day management of that security "while the tower is occupied for the purposes of bell ringing or associated small-scale bell-maintenance" lies with us. Since the early 1990s I've unilaterally decided to change the padlocks on the intermediate and the bell chambers twice and the main stair access door once due to keys going missing. Whilst I've provided the new keys to the Parish Priest, retaining copies for myself by agreement, the cost of these locks and keys were borne by the home band's funds. Since none of the keys were lost by ringers, it seems a bit of an imposition for the home band to be relied upon to keep the tower security effective overall. Whilst this is not onerous in real terms, I wonder where legal liabilities would fall should anything go wrong!

My home tower is at a Roman Catholic church so the administrative arrangements are a bit different. I've been a keyholder since I was "volunteered" for steeple-keeping duties back in the 90s. The Parish Priest changes every few years and I "indoctrinate" him at the earliest opportunity regarding the basic safety issues in his belfry. One set of keys to the spiral staircase, the intermediate chamber and bell chamber is in my keeping, another se is with all the various other keys kept in the Sacristy / Vestry. Activity in the tower is almost entirely bell-related so under my control. The only time things go awry is when the Parish Priest's contractors or other agents need access for their purposes. They fail to tell me beforehand, and so I don't get the opportunity to give them a safety briefing regarding bells. This has happened a couple of times in the past but no damage or injuries arose.

Speaking from personal experience during the 1990s, I, a slow-learner, was drawn to progress by the support and inspirational qualities of those around me. For me there was never any inherent motivation to ring peals in great numbers, or "grab" the heaviest towers in the region.....it was the pleasure of participating in a fascinating activity and acquiring skills almost by sublimation. True, there was no ART, and yet I was fortunate in being led to advance almost accidentally by the gentle explanations and never-failing encouragement of the experienced ringers I rubbed shoulders with. Today I still have no aspirations towards peals etc yet would like to keep advancing, albeit slowly-slowly. I can understand the motivators that are pushing forward the desires to improve all aspects of change-ringing, but all the discussion so far is assuming that the student has both the inclination and the capacity to absorb the extraordinary amount of "learning" that is required to achieve the levels of proficiency that are being sought from, if not demanded of them. Please don't lose sight of the natures and, dare I say it, "qualities" of the people who express an interest in ringing. Perhaps acquiring an ability to truly understand the motivations and aspirations of our students is of greater value than providing them with rigidly followed pathway to the giddy heights of "advancement" in our activity?

Wood requires a certain percentage moisture content to maintain its performance in stays as much as in all other uses. I can't remember the figures for ash but each species has a "satisfactory range, below which flexibility and resilience are lost. It's a given than most belfries are humid to some extent and it is unlikely that stays etc would fall below the minimum preferred percentage anyway, so that isn't really the issue. What is more to the point is whether the upper end of ash's preferred moisture content range maintains the required performance better / longer than stays that are much drier. Can anyone enlighten us on that, please? With regard to treating ash with oil I suspect that it would be more beneficial in "wet" towers. It certainly helps maintain the pristine appearance of new installations for longer. In my home tower which I'm using "TuffSpots" to catch all the rainwater that gets in, I'm more concerned about the wetness / dryness of the wheels. The tightness of the joints varies considerably between winter and summer, and some years ago a bellhanger suggested oiling the wheels' spokes and cheeks. This was an interesting conundrum as the Foundry had suggested using a certain wood preservative on the wheels which I knew was incompatible with linseed and similar natural oils. Perhaps in your case, oiling the stays couldn't do any harm, assuming you have no need to use other preservative treatments. Change in cut wood's interstitial moisture content is slow, and, if uneven, leads to cracking
/ splitting. A light oiling helps the cellular structure of the wood to maintain a reasonably stable moisture content.

John, In my experience of using ash more for other purposes than stays, I did in the past find that architectural use of ash posed problems insofar as the inability of a designer to obtain calculations for its performance-in-use. (Such calculations are available for a number of timbers in architectural use and are required to be presented alongside the proposed designs for Building Regulation approval). The data for oak, larch, etc can be used to inform decisions NOT to use these for stays, yet, as far as I'm aware, there is no equivalent data supporting the use of ash for stays, although we are all perfectly happy with it's continued use based upon several centuries of satisfaction. For those who are having difficulty sourcing good ash it would be nice to have the confidence to use an alternative wood. However, trying to kill two birds with one stone, I felt that in a world where making greater use of reclaimed / recycled "plastic" is urgent, perhaps stays would be a good use of such a material. Sorry for any confusion.

Thanks, John. Since becoming a broken stay perpetrator some years ago I've been curious that ash has remained the preferred choice in the modern era. Whilst it is certainly resilient, its flexibility is not as uniform as we like to believe and a (visual only) comparison of a number of new spare stays some time ago showed an unexpected and potentially significant variance in the grain. Whilst that is expected in a natural material, that visible variance suggested to me that the performance of otherwise seemingly identical stays might also be variable. With regard to potential alternative materials, I'm neither able to suggest a specific material nor am I desperately searching for one, but it does seem to me that something more flexible than ash would reduce the potential adverse effects on bearings etc of bells being heavily set.

I agree in principle with your points, which relate to a lot of "products". I wonder, though whether there is much difference in the degree of protection afforded to the bell etc. If the stay breaks the bell will continue the unwanted over-rotation. If the stay bends before failure the shock of the bell's retardation would be lessened and the ringer's experience of the event would be less violent. I surmise that the effect could be likened to the crumple zone of a car. Whilst recycled plastic bags might not be suitable, there is a huge variety of "plastic" out there, with a wide variety of properties. Is there a bell-ringing polymer engineer out there who could consider this?

There are a number of products on the market made from recycled polymers - e.g. garden furniture. Whilst these materials have no cellular structure equivalent to wood, they are often able to be worked in very similar ways. The required properties for stays are known - surely it would not be beyond the wit of (wo)man to test bats of such modern materials with the view to finding a sufficiently close equivalent to ash?

I've found all three "volumes" engaging, and have printed off copies to leave "lying about" in our Ringing Room for others to pick up and browse through. They're each impressive in their own ways, and being able to evolve / expand over time is an great asset.

When I was first taught I was advised to imaging throwing the rope through the floor, letting the sally go at the last possible second and finally putting my dominant hand onto that holding the tail, a bit like holding a golf club. Once I'd got used to that my teacher led me into a more relaxed action with my dominant hand. I later found that where my dominant hand actually ended up on the rope varied from bell to bell in our tower. With a comfortable rhythm going, I find my dominant hand ends up in slightly different place on the rope when changing places with another bell during ringing. Not sure if that is an "impure technique", but I mostly notice it when my ringing feels better than my usual...

The taper of groups of worn channels gives an indication of where the ropes went through a point at which no lateral movement was occurring. That point is sometimes, (perhaps usually), a boss, but might also be, say, a pulley wheel where the rope changed direction to the clapper or hammer. A little visual geometry might come up with the height above the arch of, say, an earlier boss or pulley location. Is there a correlation between the number of groups of grooves and the number of bells known to be in the church at different times?