Fun with Bells

The ‘Ringers’ Arms’ image used for our Halloween special episode is a fake pub sign created by Maggie Willans. Podcast team : Anne Tansley Thomas Emily Roderick John Gwynne Emily Watts Cathy Booth Ringing by : The Cambridge Youths (supplied by David Richards) and for later episodes, The Liliputters Guild (supplied by Simon Edwards). For bellringing training and support for teachers and ringers see...

Following on from last month’s edition, podcast host Cathy Booth reveals another dodgy dozen or so weird and wonderful towers. WARNING - this podcast contains details of hair-raising ringing environments, definitely not for the nervous ringers amongst you!  Enjoy another litany of trapdoors, spiral staircases, beam scrambling, comedy pulleys and 17th-century ladders. We now have a whole new list o...

These tales of weird and wonderful towers are definitely not for the faint-hearted ringers among you.   Podshow host, Cathy Booth, invites us behind the scenes of 15 of the most outlandish ringing environments from across the world, featuring trap doors, vaults, ventilator shafts, crawlways and external ladders. Clock cases also play a starring role, along with gas lamps and one particularly chill...

This episode sees host Cathy Booth in conversation with Andrew Wilby for a fascinating insight into the Taylor Bell Foundry's past, present and future. Based in Loughborough, we hear all about the history behind the foundry and some of the exciting attractions on site. The foundry has its own museum, 12 bell tower renowned for being the site of the world's longest peal and even a carillo...

Can one ever have too many belfries? In this fascinating podcast, show host Cathy Booth finds the answer to this is no, as she quizes Helen McGregor about the amazing ringing centres at Tulloch and Alderney. Helen’s bell ringing started as an excuse not to commit to babysitting for a neighbour but quickly turned into a lifetime’s addiction. What’s more, together with husband Peter, bell ringing ha...

Originally timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE day, this unique episode sees host Cathy Booth, joined by a whole cast of ringers, bust the myths about ringing during World War II. This is the abridged version of ‘thirty voices, seventy-five years, one story’ aimed at non-ringers. And what a story! For more information, including photographs and the biographies of the 2 interviewees,...

Originally timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of VE day, this unique episode sees host Cathy Booth, joined by a whole cast of ringers, bust the myths about ringing during World War II. This is the full version of ‘thirty voices, seventy-five years, one story’ . And what a story! Bell towers across the country are currently silent due to the coronavirus pandemic. Unprecedented is currently...

In this episode you’ll get three for the price of one as a panel of the country’s top strikers discuss their top tips. And no, it’s not football we’re talking about, but bell ringing! Colin Newman, Lesley Boyle and Stephanie Warboys join podcast host Cathy Booth at the Association of Ringing Teachers conference to chat about the holy grail of bell ringing, which is good striking. What starts off w...

In this podcast, historian Gareth Davies challenges everything you ever thought about the history of bell ringing in one of host Cathy Booth’s most engaging interviews yet. At times, Gareth makes being an 18th century ringer sound like everyone’s dream job. Fancy being paid £80,000 a year, enjoying a free tab at the pub paid for by the parish council and getting pension support in your old age? Ho...

For this episode, show host Cathy Booth stays close to home and interviews her ringer husband, Roger, a trustee of the Charmborough Ring.  Not just your average mini-ring, the Charmborough Ring is the heaviest portable ring of bells in the country. Heavier, believe it or not, than some rings of tower bells.  So how many people does it take to put up a portable belfry? Roger expertly talks us throu...

Ever wondered what it was like to learn how to ring? Or have forgotten what it was like when you first started out? Discover, or rediscover, in this podcast, as host Cathy Booth talks to not one, but to two new ringers currently following the ART Learning The Ropes scheme. Linda simply answered an advertisement in village magazine posted by a fellow dog-walker. As for Annie, well two years sailing...

Most Ringing Remembers recruits were thrilled to have rung at their tower for last year’s Remembrance Day but enthusiastic new ringer and amateur film maker Chris Richmond rang at seven! Podcast host, Cathy Booth, finds out that Chris’s enthusiasm initially stemmed from his interest in sound recording. His desire to record the sound of the bells led him up into a local tower, but it was the sound...

Having worked at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry for 40 years, Nigel Taylor is the perfect guide to how to tune a bell, talking podcast host Cathy Booth through the whole process from design to casting and tuning. And if you’ve never considered the actual sound a bell makes before, this podcast will be a revelation. You might never use the word ‘dong’ again after you discover that a tower bell is inh...

The world of 12 bell ringing on enormous bells is indeed a rarefied one, but that there is an overriding sense of outreach and community in Mark Regan’s in-depth and wide-ranging conversation with podshow host Cathy Booth. Being ringing master at Worcester Cathedral, having rung about 2,400 peals, helping set up the first bell ringing training centre in the country and being involved in an amazing...

Find out more about the CCCBR, with its long history, ambitious vision for the future and huge raft of essential services in this wide ranging interview with the CCCBR President. Christopher O’Mahoney, President of the Central Council of Church Bell Ringing,  says that the good thing about ringing is that there is something for everyone.   Find out more about the CCCBR. Now you’ll know exactly whe...

Bonus episode: This short episode is a trailer for the YouTube coverage of the national 12 bell striking competition to be held in Exeter on Saturday 22nd June 2019. YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtgohlpICbnCPm0vig3H_oA National 12 bell Striking Competition website: http://www.12bell.org.uk/ Podcast team : Anne Tansley Thomas Emily Roderick John Gwynne Emily Watts Cathy Booth R...

The first Fun with Bells Podcast Season ends with a generous double helping as show host Cathy Booth interviews young ringer Charlie Linford and audio engineer David Richards. Charlie (11) explains to Cathy that bell ringing is a rewarding hobby for all ages as she throws light on some of the theory behind ringing, including some tips on how to start learning methods. With seven quarter peals unde...

'Recruit 1400 new ringers to remember those who lost their lives in the first World War' – this was the mission that Vicki Chapman chose to accept and the rest, as they say, is history. Vicki talks podcast host Cathy Booth through her involvement in the overwhelmingly successful Ringing Remembers campaign -  from that fateful telephone call one evening to the bells ringing out across the...

Ever wondered what the attraction of handbell ringing is? Well, Judy Vale gives Fun with Bells Podcast host, Cathy Both, a whole raft of reasons to take up this absorbing and musical hobby. Handbells are part of our history and tradition, you can take your handbells out to places like care homes and really connect with your audience and you don’t need to be able to read music to play a tune. And j...

In this episode Graham Nabb introduces Fun with Bells podcast host Cathy Booth to one of the most English of pursuits - tower grabbing. Graham is the ideal guide to the uninitiated, having notched up the amazing total of 5785 towers to date. Rather like the twitchers of the bird watching world, keen tower grabbers are always on the look out for the openings of rare towers that they’ve never rung a...

You may have heard of rope-sight but have you heard of rope-sense? Podcast host Cathy Booth discovers that this highly developed sense of rhythm is just one of the many tools and techniques that has helped Rebecca Legowski on her ringing journey. Rebecca, who has been blind from birth, is learning to ring on both tower bells and hand bells, and is already lighting up Bell Board, scoring her first...

The Fun with Bells cream tea debate rages on in this episode as host Cathy Booth’s quizzes Cornish ringer Owen Borlase -  but there’s much more to this interview than cream and jam. Call change ringing in Cornwall is seen as an art in its own right and Owen is clearly championing the cause through his promotion of call change peals, the book he co-wrote and his success in getting this unique style...

In this episode, host Cathy Booth catches up with Bruce Butler in the USA and teases out some top tips to arranging a successful ringing tour. Bruce has been organising ringing tours to the UK since the 1990s - the logistics of arranging transatlantic ringing tours in the days before the internet are mind-blowing. Having rung in almost 4,000 towers you might imagine the Bruce has some great storie...

In this fascinating podcast, Cathy Booth catches up with top bellringer and inspirational driving force behind the recent Ringing Remembers campaign, Alan Regin MBE. This is a must-listen interview for any new ringing recruit as Alan reveals the origins of his idea for this amazingly successful initiative.  A prolific ringer, Alan confesses to having rung over over 5,900 peals, with nine of those...

Hand bells, bell plates, hand chimes and boomwhackers - who knew there was so much variety!?! In this podcast Cat Nettles talks Cathy Booth through the wonderful world of handbell ringing, filling her in on the history, range of instruments and styles of ringing, Cathy discovers that hand bellringing allegedly began when church bell ringers, unable to get into their towers for one reason or anothe...