Ringing endorsement for appeal of bells

Ewan, of Cawood, near Selby, has been ringing bells up to eight times his body weight every Sunday morning at St Wilfrid's Church in York for the past three years and is thought to be the youngest in the region and one of the most junior bell ringers in the country.

But as if he has not already been ringing above his weight, the Cawood Church of England Primary School pupil has now clinched a remarkable achievement of doing his first quarter peal on 10 bells – a continuous piece lasting about 45 minutes that many adult ringers fail to achieve in a lifetime.

"We are very proud", said dad David Hull, an operations manager at York University. "Ewan's grandparents were bell ringers and both his parents are too but he has picked it up amazingly quickly and has shown real aptitude for it.

"He is very good at maths, which helps, but you also need a lot of physical skill and mental dexterity to stay in sequence with all the other bells.

"He first started when he was five but now he is a lot stronger which you need to pull on the ropes.

"It is something that is quintessentially English and you can go to any town or village on a Sunday morning and hear bells ringing. I am delighted Ewan is taking it on."

Ewan trains every Thursday at the church as well as taking part in the Sunday service, often ringing bells weighing between 24 and 32 stone despite only weighing four stone himself.

He said: "My friends have come along to try it for themselves but they only thought it was all right but I really like it.

"All the other bell ringers are grown ups but I don't mind.

"Sometimes I get tired when I have been doing it for a while but I just keep ringing.

"My dream is to go and ring the bells in the Cathedral Church of Christ in Liverpool, they have the heaviest bells in the world."