Staplehurst Bellringers Report July 2026

Why I became a Bellringer

Something a little different this month.

Moreover, what follows is a transcript of a talk I gave.

Additionally, it was delivered to All Saints’ church congregation on Bell Sunday.

This Bellringers Report July 2026 accompanies the talk.

Whenever I confess to anyone that my hobby is bellringing, I nearly always get the same response.

However, they murmur bellringing under their breath, as if it would be normal to collect boas or similar curiosities.

I see images of Christmas card bells, as noted in Bellringers Report July 2026. Monk cartoons go through their minds as they wonder what on earth I find to interest me in bellringing.

I consider going on to explain how much more there is to it than they think. Usually I leave them to regard me as vaguely odd instead of completely mad. Otherwise, they would see me as mad if I explained what I and other ringers do for enjoyment.

On most Saturdays, some ringers spend the morning by ringing a peal. In effect, you stand at the end of a rope for about three hours. Your arms go up and down more than 5,000 times. You must stay focused to avoid losing your place and triggering a fire-up. A fire-up is a non-technical term, easily guessed by anyone near a church.

Moreover, by the end, your knees can lock solid. You may not move for fear of collapse.

Some people do this several thousand times during their ringing career. I’ve rung 54 peals during my 50 years of ringing. Believe me, the best part is quenching your thirst in the pub afterwards. This is discussed in Bellringers Report July 2026.

Then there is “tower grabbing”.  Staplehurst is just one of over 5000 churches with bells in the UK, each with their own characteristics and peculiarities.  It makes a nice change to ring on bells other than one’s own, but for some ringers it almost becomes an obsession with people travelling hundreds of miles to ring on rarely available or newly installed or renovated bells.  This is normally done by means of an open day where all the churches in a particular area are available for a separate 45-minute period, and with careful planning it is possible to mop up around 30 new towers in a day.  The locals must find it highly amusing seeing carloads of people rushing around their normally quiet lanes trying to find that tower that you can see from miles away but you’re going round in circles to get to it.  I wouldn’t admit to being a tower grabber, but I have rung at 1680 churches out of a total of the 5000, including the most northerly and the most easterly.

A far more relaxing approach is a day’s outing with 5 or 6 towers. Additionally, you can enjoy a leisurely pub lunch. When organising a day outing, the secret is to find a good lunchtime pub first. Then organise the towers around it.

As a bell ringer, you are part of a huge extended family. You can turn up at almost any tower on their practice night.

For Sunday morning ringing, you would be warmly welcomed.

Many is the time I have simply dropped in to a strange tower whilst on holiday.

Bellringers even have their own esoteric vocabulary which would totally baffle a non-ringer.

“Tittums”, for example, is an onomatopoeic word for when the bells are in the order 15263748 or ti-tum, ti-tum,ti-tum, ti-tum.

When the conductor shouts “Bob”, he is not shouting at another ringer.

He is giving a command to change the order of the bells.

In the pub you might hear some of the more fanatical ringers talking about “Q-sets”.

Don’t ask me what that means because I have no idea.

In fact there is a book available which has a glossary of literally hundreds of such ringing words and phrases.

Yes, all part of that mysterious world of bellringing.

We even have our own weekly magazine entitled, appropriately, The Ringing World. This culture is echoed in Bellringers Report July 2026.

Firstly, why did I start this weird and wonderful hobby of bellringing? Well, I was brought up in South East London, and our local church had no bells.

In the mid 70s I moved with my parents to Kent and joined the choir at Yalding church. Eager to make new friends, I asked one chorister what the social scene was like.

The bellringers are a sociable bunch, he said. It turned out he was the Tower Captain and seeking recruits. Why don’t you come along? So I did. I found it a bit of a struggle at first. But I enjoyed the beer in the pub afterwards. I soon learnt that, like rugby and cricket, beer was an important part of the ringing environment.

However, it wasn’t long before the bellringing bug bit me.

Consequently, the rest, as they say, is history.

Moreover, I have now been ringing for 50 years.

Additionally, I’d pulled a bell rope around 2 million times.

Many great times have marked the journey.

Ringing led me to many beautiful churches.

I visited many good and not so good pubs.

Through ringing I have met many wonderful people.

My lovely wife Sallyann was a ringer at Headcorn.

Our son Richard is an accomplished ringer.

He married a ringer who is the daughter of a ringer.

What are the odds that their son will become a ringer?

Therefore, I would guess the odds are pretty high.

Yes, ringing has truly shaped my adult life.  All I can say is, ringing is an experience you have to try before you can believe what fun and enjoyment there is to be gained from it.

Roy Barclay is Tower Secretary.