On Wednesday 21 January, Grahamstown will be treated to the sounds of bell-ringing, as a group of visiting bell-ringers takes to the Cathedral bell tower.
On Wednesday 21 January, Grahamstown will be treated to the sounds of bell-ringing, as a group of visiting bell-ringers takes to the Cathedral bell tower.
Nearly 30 bell-ringers, including members of the Winchester and Portsmouth Diocesan Guild of Church Bell Ringers, are currently on tour in South Africa and will stop over in Grahamstown from 20-23 January.
"Largely from the UK, they will be visiting also Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town and thereafter part of the group will continue on to Kenya and Zimbabwe to do various bell rings," said tour organiser Tony King, of Go Travel in Grahamstown.
One person who is thrilled about the group's visit is Grahamstown bell-ringer Catherine Letcher.
She's been doing bell ringing for 25 years, since she was 12. "Our family did it as a pastime," Letcher told Grocott's Mail on Thursday 15 January.
It took the chief bell-ringer Michael Burning 10 lessons to teach the Letcher family how to ring the Cathedral bells.
"The art of controlling a bell is what makes it possible to ring a method," Letcher explained
. A method is a numerical pattern, or order of ringing, that a lay listener would refer to as a tune.
According to the Cathedral's website, its lightest bell weighs 288kg; the heaviest 1 302kg.
The visiting group are very experienced ringers, Letcher says.
"They've been ringing since they were old enough to manage a bell – 5 or 6 years old."
She says it's going to be interesting for the local bell-ringers – but also quite daunting.
"We have so few ringers that it's hard for us to do all the methods," she said on Thursday 15 January.
She says they're expecting at least visiting bell-ringers.
Particularly exciting is that bells will be rung which haven;'t been touched in years.
"We have 10 bells," Letcher said. "But we haven't run 10 for about six years – since the AGM of the SA Bellringers Guild."
In Grahamstown there are four active bell-ringers "on a good day".
That means they're limited as to what methods they can ring.
For that reason, the tune Grahamstown residents hear most often is one called 'Plain Hunt on Three Bells' with a Cover. That means an optional fourth bell, in case they have four ringers.
"That makes it more interesting than just three bells, which sounds like 'Three Blind Mice'," Letcher said.
The bell-ringing on 21 January will be throughout the day, but listen out especially around midday, Letcher advises.
In an email to Grocott's Mail group member Robert Cater said on 21 January, residents should listen for all 10 bells being rung in ‘bursts’ of 5 to 10 minutes, followed by a ‘Quarter Peal’.
"This will take 50 minutes of continuous ringing," he said.
About the bells
According to the Cathedral's website, the first ring of bells to be installed in Africa was hung in the Grahamstown Cathedral tower in 1879.
The bells, an octave cast by John Warner and Sons in London, were supplied complete with fittings and with a frame of English oak. More at bit.ly/1wdf4Hi.
