Knowing the ropes

There's a TV commercial in which four dark-cowled monks are piously ringing the bells at a remote hilltop abbey. They stop to eat a well-known chocolate bar, and the resulting rush of energy makes them ring so hard that the ropes pull them up and down inside the bell tower like yo-yos.

The advert has had many thousands of views on YouTube and causes particular amusement among real bellringers, since what they actually do depends not so much on strength – or munching energy bars – as on technique.

"Okay, the advert gives totally the wrong impression," says Jane Lynch, ringing master at All Saints Parish Church in Bingley, "but it's a piece of fun, really, a bit of a laugh. In fact we always tell people who want to become ringers that a sense of humour is just as important as a sense of timing."

She is speaking on one of the final practice nights prior to their busy Christmas schedule. In the small ringing room half-way up the interior of the church's 18th century bell tower the magic sustainer used by the ringers is not chocolate but a bottle of glycerin and rosewater for improving their grip on ropes.

There are more ringers than there are bells at Bingley, and so everyone has to wait for their turn on the ropes. As he sits out one "peal" Bob Isgrove, a bell ringer there for six years, describes it as the perfect hobby for anyone who has a stressful job.

"You're controlling a bell that can weigh something like a small car and yet it produces this most wonderful sound. It is absolutely absorbing."

Yorkshire has around 300 churches with bells and getting on for 2,000 ringers, most of whom are members of the venerable Yorkshire Association of Change Ringers. They usually start ringing up between 45 minutes and half an hour before a service.

Change ringing is the name given to a way of bellringing that began in England around 500 years ago and spread to other English-speaking countries. This involves the use of tuned bells – at Bingley there are eight but in cathedrals like York Minster there can be as many as 14. Each is tuned to one tone or – less common – a semitone. The highest is the treble, lowest the tenor.

There is no attempt made to produce a conventional melody. Instead, they are rung in a series of mathematical patterns called "changes", which quite literally involves changing the sequence in which the bell ropes are pulled.

In some European countries the bell sounds are made by a sort of musical instrument called a Carillon, in which a large number of bells are struck by hammers. And in many English churches – there are at least two examples in North Leeds – the vicar or verger simply plays a record of bells wired up to large speakers in the tower.

"Actually," says Barrie Dove, president of the Yorkshire Association, "the noise they make is quite good and it could fool the unknowledgeable into thinking there were some bellringers there. But we change ringers look down on that sort of thing."

At Bingley, the ringers stand in a circle, each with one rope which has a coloured woollen grip known as a "sally". There is also an adornment, peculiar to the region, known as a Yorkshire Tail, which matches the sally's colour but has no real function. The sally is pulled downwards, causing the bell – attached to a wheel in the bell chamber above – to swing roughly 360 degrees. It rings once on each pull, and a wooden post traditionally made from ash stops the wheel from making one complete circle, so that the wheel rewinds and the rope comes back down again.

Each bell has a number, and the variations are produced by Jane calling out changes to the sequence like "five after three". Ringers have to concentrate on where their place is in the sequence, and those who learn this skill are said to have developed "rope-sight".

However, the art of change ringing is something which new recruits often find hard to pick up and they usually start by training on a special computer simulator. They still pull the bell ropes, but the metal clappers in the bells have been tied up by bungees to stop them ringing, while the wheels to which each bell is attached passes an electronic sensor and sends a message to a PC downstairs in the ringing chamber, which then plays the sound of the bell. This ingenious technology spares those who live nearby having to listen to hours and hours of learner ringers, mistakes and all.

Irene Stanford-Wood, one of the newest members at Bingley, began with the simulator in September and is now ready for her first Christmas as a ringer. "I always thought you had to be big and strong, but I'm five-foot three and just under eight stone. So really it's more about the technique and keeping track of changes.

"I like the fact that bell ringing is a public service as well as a performance. But it's one that's a team effort, and there's no room for prima donnas among bellringers."

Christmas is one of the busiest times for Jane and her team, and they also get together to ring in the New Year. Weddings keep them busy in summer, and they do what is known as a half-muffled quarter peal every Remembrance Sunday.

A bit like trainspotters or twitchers, some keep a careful record of other churches at which they have been invited to ring the bells. Many ringers go all round the country looking for a new tower to add to the list. When one is found it is called a "grab".

Jane has been ringing for 36 years and says she has rung at most churches in Yorkshire, and also many others in Lancashire, Cheshire and County Durham. The Bingley Bellringers have occasional trips to other parts of the UK, with Lichfield Cathedral and the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool both providing "grabs" this year.

All ringers love having a chance to ring at York Minster. One of Jane's ringers describes it as switching from driving a saloon car to getting behind the wheel of a Rolls Royce.

Details on how to become a bell ringer can be found on the website of the Yorkshire Association of Change Ringers at www.yacr.org.uk

For information about Bingley Bellringers visit their website at www.bingleybells.org.uk

YP MAG 24/12/10