History

Most of what you'll find here is based on 'armchair research.' I haven't gone much out of my way to compile my interests in ringing history over the years, and most of the sources used have been found within the comfort of my own home. Books, the internet, the RW and Bell News DVDs, etc. However, as with most armchair publications this is still probably the first time that many of these sources and the speculations about them have been gathered into the same place. And there are quite a lot of sources here that are not very well-known, or difficult to attain, so I'm glad to make them available to a wider public.

Scrapbook. After getting the Ringing World 1911 - 1941 DVD, it became quite a hobby to cut out the Worcestershire extracts that I found interesting and save them into a large scrapbook.
A couple of years later I compiled a second scrapbook for the Bell News DVD.
It has always interested me that there used to be a ring of bells at St. Helen's Church, situated on Worcester's High Street. For hundreds of years this tower was one of the main centres of ringing in the city. The disposal of the bells in 1951 is a particularly sad story.
In contrast, it appears that the former ring of five at the Glover's Needle were never rung much.
William Henry Thomas was a ringer and parish clerk at St. John's, Worcester. His entertaining ringing diary covers the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, giving us a valuable and intimate snapshot of ringing at that tower which would have otherwise been forgotten.
I've also included a section for the obituaries of notable Worcestershire ringers.
For some of these ringers we are very lucky to have their personal memories. Some of the memories come from the ringer concerned, others are memories about that ringer written by a loved one.
In 1998 - about one hundred years after the W. H. Thomas diary - a new chapter began for the ringers at St. John-in-Bedwardine when two young ringers moved to the area, and so the Bedwardine Guild of Change Ringers was formed. I'm sure that those of us who were part of this community, and enjoyed the annual festival weekends and dinners will agree with me that it was very special, providing memories to be treasured.