Stuff I Love - Church Bells

As I've probably made clear I'm not too excited about the Olympics. However the opening day did remind me of something I'd practically forgotten about. As you may recall there was a plan to get everybody to ring bells twelve hours before the Olympics opened.

Now a cacophony of bells (church, hand held and bicycle) doesn't really appeal (boom boom). But the coverage on the local telly reminded me that a sound I do love is that of Church Bells.

There is something simultaneously uplifting yet melancholy about beautifully rang church bells. Thinking about it I think like a lot of things it goes back to my childhood.

As a teenager going to secondary school I used to catch two buses to school and back. The bus into Wakefield from Ossett and then the bus out from Wakefield to my school. On an afternoon I would make the reverse journey and quite often there was a short walk from the bus stop where I got off one bus into the bus station. Wakefield was quite a bustling city centre except on Wednesday afternoons.

It seems like another world now but in those days (late seventies) there was the concept of 'half day closing'. The whole city stopped at lunch time on a Wednesday and closed early. I think the half day closing day varied from place to place - in Ossett I think it was Tuesday.

So on Wednesday afternoon walking through Wakefield city centre was like venturing through a ghost town. And for some reason the church bells (probably cathedral bells actually) rang out. I can still sense that other worldy feeling of walking across an empty city in broad daylight with a soundtrack of pealing bells. Of course as all real music fans will tell you there is something beautiful about melancholia and that is the feeling I always felt. As if the city had been emptied by a mysterious event and it was mine and mine alone.

So some of my love of bells is tied up with those Wednesday afternoons but even in other contexts I like the sound. I'm obviously not the only one either. If you listen to the single 'The Sensual World' by Kate Bush it opens with a peal of church bells. The American band Wilco actually recorded some church bells when they were in Leeds and put them on their last  album.

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While I'm on the subject of bells here's a joke told to me by Mark Dove that bears repeating (if its rubbish blame Mark not me).

So Quasimodo the famous bell ringer of Notre Dame had died. Open auditions were held for his replacement. The best bell ringers in Paris and the surrounding area all came along. But the Cardinal was particularly impressed by one unusual candidate. This individual played the bells by running into them and banging them with his head. It was unusual but effective. The music was beautiful. The Cardinal was on the point of telling the man that he had the job. Then tragedy struck. The man went to ring one more note and missed. He fell from the tower to his death.

The Cardinal ran down the tower and out to find a stranger cradling the dead man. 'Cardinal do you know this man?' asked the stranger.

'No', he replied 'But his face rings a bell'.

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So the next day the auditions resumed. A man introduced himself as the brother of the man who had died the previous day. This man played the bells more conventionally but equally beautifully. Once again the Cardinal was on the point of giving him the job when tragedy struck again. Distracted the man missed the bell rope and toppled out of the tower.

Again the Cardinal ran down the tower to find another stranger cradling a dead man. 'Cardinal do you know this man?'

'No', he replied 'But he's a dead ringer for his brother'.