Barbara McEliece wrote:

Simon - I hope you don't mind me contacting you off-list.  As may be obvious
from my recent posts, I have an idea about DLS and the change-ringing and I
think you may be able to help me figure out whether I am totally off-base
about it. (And I *have* to ask you, as your lessons on the topic are what
put this notion in my head, so it's all your fault!)  My question to you, if
it is not too intrusive, is why did you decide to be a change-ringer?  Was

The proximate cause was that the bells in our church had not been rung regularly for some 8 or 9 years, and, with a new vicar in post, the tower captain at a neighbouring church offered to teach a new band of ringers. So, along with several others I realized that if we wanted our church bells rung then we would have to learn to ring them ourselves, we couldn't really expect anyone else to ring them. About a dozen of us started to learn, and a few months later another 6 started. But there is quite a high drop-out rate at the early stages, when people don't get to grips with being able to handle the bell -- either as quickly as they think they should, or (in some cases) clearly didn't have the aptitude. I.e. lack of co-ordination or lack of commitment. Of those 18 about 6 of us have continued. I found that I was quite good at it, and -- having learned the practicalities of actually pulling the rope to control the bell -- attacked this the way I learn other things, i.e. by reading and practice. Neither makes sense on its own, but the theory underpins the practical, and the practical explains the theory. The practical side I liken a bit to learning to ride a bike -- you have to acquire a number of skills which don't come naturally, and be able to do them all together; once you can do it it becomes pretty easy to ride a bike. With ringing, once you have learnt to ring the bell then a whole new world of challenges opens up. And I enjoy that.

But I suppose to some extent I was predisposed to be interested. As I have said before, NINE played its part: I remember seeing the Ian Carmichael BBC tv adaptation in the mid 1970s, when I was a teenager, and I watched the Edward Petherbridge version in the 1980s, and after Gaudy Night I came acrosos and bought Busman's Honeymoon to read as the continuation of the story. And then I went and read the entire corpus, culminating in reading NINE for the first time.

And my sister learnt to ring at a church near where we grew up, when she was 18 or so, and co-incidentally her teenage son started to learn at about the same time as I did, and my father-in-law comes from a family of ringers (though he no longer rings himself) and he and his 4 brothers were the mainstay of their village church band. So even though this was not a world I had previously lived in it was not something that was totally alien to me. A foreign language and a new skill, yes; but one that I had seen happening around me, or aamong people I knew.

That was why I started, I think. But, as I noted, I found that I was able to get on and become quite good. And I practiced, and because I practiced I got better, and because I got better I could do more things, and becuase I could do more I enjoyed it more. That's not unusual among people who start something new -- sometimes you hit lucky and find something that you enjoy and/or are reasonably good at.

it because of wanting to be a part of the tradition?  Of wanting to make
beautiful bell music?  Or of being intrigued by the challenge and
orderliness?  Probably a lot of different reasons would contribute, but I am
truly curious as to what the primary motivation was.  It's pretty obvious
that ringing is hard to master, mentally, and hard physical work, so what do
you from it that makes the effort worthwhile?

It's not generally hard work physical work, not once you've rung the bells up (which can take a bit of effort on the heavier bells), an not once you have enough skill to be able to feel the bell and wheel from the other end of the rope and can judge when to pull to use minimal effort. A slight degree of fitness, but certainly no mre than say a brisk walk.

Thank you for bearing with me on this.  The whole thing is fascinating, now
that you have made it understandable enough that I don't have to just skip
over it as one does the timetables in FIVE. <g>

Quite so -- that's new for me this time too!

cheers

simon