District Outing to Essex

Ringing in North Essex

Saturday 14th November was the planned date for the District Outing to North Essex. When I awoke for the fourth time in a 6 hour period prior to 7.30am, it was a case of get up now and get to the first tower on time or (considering the weather) forget the whole idea and hibernate under the duvet for the rest of the day. Tempting as that sounded, I don't think it would have gone down too well for the 14 other ringers due to join the trip.

I got a rather grumpy teenager out of bed and we managed to set off on time on the hour long journey to the first tower at Toppesfield, a newly ring of 8 augmented from four two years ago by Taylors.

As we travelled down the A143 towards Haverhill, the sun came out and I was much cheered by the mistaken belief that perhaps it was going to be a nice weather day after all. Wrong! On arrival at Toppesfield we got out of the car to be greeted by a large roll of thunder emenating from the blackest cloud I have ever seen close by. We managed to get Connie our four legged ringing fan into a nicely pre- warmed tower before she got too wet, not that she was bothered, labradors love water!

Over the next 30 minutes 15 of the expected 16 ringers assembled in the tower and we had some lovely ringing once the striking and handling of the bells was sorted. Unforunately a couple of us needed an inverse box but hastily tied knots did the trick. The restoration project was largely paid for by funds from Lord Sainsbury's legacy to the church but we didn't get any extra nectar points for using the bells. It was a lovely ringing room finished in oak and I am sure it wont belong before the walls are festooned with peal boards.

Moving on to the 8 at Wethersfield we found ourselves in a somewhat cooler ground floor ring with a large post in the middle of the circle which made ropesight a little tricky for the middle bells to see the trebles. We were joined for a short time by a blue tit who was just a little too cocky for his own good and narrowly missed being caught by Connie who never normally misses an opportunity for a snack.

The bells did sound nice and ringing them was a pleasure although we were a bit disconcerted that nobody met us and we spent several minutes looking for possible clock hammers that might have needed pulling off.

We were joined by the 16th ringer (no names no pack drill) at the last tower of the morning before lunch which was Finchingfield, another ground floor ring, they too sounded lovely even though they were still half muffled. Unfortunately during ringing two of the muffles fell off so the backstroke changes sounded a little odd. Fortunately for us the foul weather had made sure that there were not many tourists around in this normally picturesque village and I don't think the few that had ventured out noticed anything odd.

So keen was I to get to the Red Lion at Steeple Bumpstead to make sure that the pre ordered lunches were on their way, that I managed to leave my handbag containing all my money, cards etc in the church at Finchingfield. This was much to the amusement of Craig as I had just spent much of the journey to the pub berating him for leaving his coat behind at Wethersfield. With bated breath I am sure that I stretched the speed limits a little on the return journey to retrieve the bag, but miraculously it was exactly where I had left it on a table in the back area of the church. Had there been some more visitors around I might not have been so lucky.

Now that I was able to pay for my lunch I enjoyed it even more. The food was all served up at the same time, was well cooked and a very good price which the landlady had fixed for us as a group. The homemade pudding menu was to die for and with coffee at £1 a cup, everyone was very satisfied. It was so tempting to spend the rest of the afternoon in front of the log fire with Sue Munford who bless her, had come along for the ride as she is not yet recovered enough to ring. It was so nice to have her back with us though and she was a handy dog minder while Craig and I were ringing.

A short hop across the road was all that was needed to ring the six at Steeple Bumpstead. Another recently restored ring which despite some short ropes, (I reckon the rain had shrunk them) we managed to ring some nice Single Oxford and Stedman on.

The last tower of the day was Helions Bumpstead and these were restored in 1985. Fortunately we had been told at the previous tower where the key might be found in case no one turned up. We did have to use this information and then after ringing for 30 mins we stood in horror and listened to the clock chiming 4 o' clock. There had been no notices or any sign of clock hammers which would have needed pulling off and I must admit that my heart was in my mouth until Gordon sensibly commented that if we had done any damage by not pulling the hammers off, the clock would not have struck the hour with the bells in an upward position.

Having rung a lovely course of Yorkshire Major we returned a big red motability scooter to its parking place underneath the rope spider. We were still wondering why the resident ringers might have needed this type of transport because although uphill, the distance from the gate to the tower was not that great.

Having had a nice day ringing on some really good bells we somewhat reluctantly made our way home. It would have ben nice to ring for longer but the effects of a calorie loaded lunch coupled with the absence of an afternoon nap to sleep off the glucose overload proved too much for some of us.

I look forward to planning another outing next year and although November is not normally a month that you would associate a ringing outing with, what else could we have done on a day when the weather was so disgusting, except sit at home and mope about the rain. I do encourage you all to join us next time!