JRK was not wrong to describe these recollections as fascinating. Sid's rustic and uncontrolled introduction to bell-handling on the equally rustic and uncontrolled bells of Crowle is very different to how things are done today, and it is a testimony of his exceptional abilities that he was able to rise to national prominence nonetheless.

Equally fascinating are the accounts of no fewer than six rings of bells which are no longer heard. On either ends of Worcester High Street, St. Nicholas and St. Helen's both had practice nights, but St. Helen's bells were disposed of in 1951, and St. Nicholas have been unringable since the late 1930s. The tower of St. Andrew's, Droitwich had to be truncated due to subsidence, and the bells were removed and placed on the floor of the church, where they still remain. It is strange that multiple sources record 1911 as being the year that the tower was truncated, yet the lost peal mentioned in these recollections was in 1920. How can this be? At any rate, Sid never did ring a peal there while the bells were still in situ, which I'm sure must have been frustrating. The other rings no longer in existence today are the Grimthorpe pre-1928 bells of Worcester Cathedral, the pre-Taylor bells of Hanbury, and the old 28 cwt twelve at Buckfast Abbey.

 

                                                            Tom Lewis (1910 - 2005) and Memories of St. John's

Tom Lewis (who also features on the obituaries page) was a greatly revered ringer of his generation, both locally and further afield. Even today many people remember his exceptionally tidy bell-handling style and striking precision. He was a very fine heavy-bell ringer, and one of the Fearn brothers of Birmingham said that there was nobody better on the tenor than Tom. He was also fondly remembered for being a very interesting and talented person in many other ways.

 

Tom grew up in St. John's, a large suburb across the river from Worcester City, and it was fortunate that his recollections - which date from about 1997 - were published in the excellent book Memories of St. John's. There aren't actually many ringing references in this passage (I have highlighted these in bold to make them easier to spot), but it is still fascinating to read the childhood memories of someone who was growing up during the First World War and the post-war austerity.

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Memories of St. John's, pp. 155 - 161:

 

Two Brothers

Tom Lewis

I'm the eldest of four Children and I was born in Pitmaston Road. When I was just a toddler I walked from here and got as far as the river. I was just toddling and nobody saw me. Florrie was born at 32 Bedwardine Road - people call it Bedwardeen, I don't know why, its always been Bedwardine. Our uncle lived next door but the two houses have been pulled down long since. Phyllis was born in Blakefield Road, and Jack in Bromyard Terrace.

I went to St John's School. The mixed infants and junior girls were in the building where the library is and I believe the two sections were divided by screens. The boys school was across the playground at the back. The toilets were out there as well. Round the side of the school facing the Terrace were some steps down to the stoke hole; Mr Thomas the caretaker used to go down there to see to the fire. He was the parish clerk as well and a bellringer with father. I had an aunty who lived in one of the houses in the Terrace and I used to wave to her from the playground.

 

I remember the day I started school. Mother wouldn't come with me so my cousin took me down. They next day a lad called Alec Boulter started. Some time between ten and half past he said, "I want to go to the lavatory". "You know where its is?" "Yes" he said, "well go on then". Well, half an hour went by and they sent me to look for him in the toilets. I looked all round but no, he wasn't there. Then at quarter to twelve he walks in: "Where d'you think you've been?" He said, "I've been to the lavatory, I've benn 'ome". There was another kid called Clarke, he always came late. One day there were some strange noises coming from the lockers, and when they opened his these two young partridges flew out! He'd pinched 'em.

 

In those days schools weren't sreamed. If you weren't clever enough you just stayed down another year. One of our teachers was called 'Tapper' Morton because he used to tap you with a stick. I always had four strokes off him. "Hold your hand out" he'd say, and if you shut it you got it across the knuckle, and it hurt. If you said "umm" you got a smack across the earhole; "don't say umm, say ah!" 'Tapper' went to some function or other in the church with the wife of a reserve teacher, Mr Clay, and she thought he was called Mr Tapper! She kept saying things like "Mr Tapper, are you going to give me a hand with this?" "Don't call him that" said her husband, "His name's Mr Morton".

 

We were in assembly once and the headmaster, Mr Bowen, said, "any of you lads know a song?" and this kid said, "yes sir". "What's it called?", "The Mouse". "Well, come up and sing it then", "I can't remember the words, sir". "Anybody else then?", "Yes sir" I said and did my song. Then another lad called Bill Oakey said, "sir, I know one all about the war and Kaiser Bill", and I remember this:

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"On the cross, on the cross

Where the Kaiser lost his horse

And the eagle off his hat flew away

He was eating currant buns

When he heard the British guns

But now the Kaiser's gone away."

 

The day the 1914-18 war finished we all marched round the playground singing. Shortly after we all marched to Pitchcroft to a pageant and we were all given a medal, a mug and a map of the world with British Empire all marked in red - "The sun never sets on the British Empire" - nothing of it left now.

Another of out teachers was called Mr Jeffries, but known to us as 'Piggy'. One afternoon he was reading the register when suddenly this dead mouse sailed through the air and landed on the book. No-one saw where it came from. He never used the cane really. Mrs Jeffries was a real 'John Bull' type - she was a big noise in the Red Cross.

 

One thing that has always stuck in my mind was the time when Phyl swallowed her dummy. I was only five and we were living in Blakefield Road. Phyl was born in the front room there. Something was wrong with mum at the time - she had her legs up on something so she tilted back. There was a doctor and nurse there at the time when Phyl swallowed it - she wasn't very old. They came running in a panic and poured castor oil down her, and eventually she passed it.

We were living in Bromyard Terrace when Jack was born and next to our backyard was a cowshed and yard belonging to Ted Watkins. He had a few cows there and used to drive them down to Paynes Meadow. He was a wheelwright by trade. Next door to him was Fennell's the coal merchant. A mad bull escaped from Henwick Station once and came down Henwick Road. The men couldn't control him and he hit a lamp-post. They got him into Fennell's yard then and shot him.

 

At one time I belonged to the Church of England's Men's Society. We used to go to the Parish Hall on a Monday night for that. It ran from about 7.30 to 9.00 pm, and 30 of us attended. Rev Powell would take part and we all talked about religion and other topics. It was quite interesting mind you. We also had a football team, the St John's Church Lads. We played in the old Worcester league, propping it up in the first season but the next on was better. Two of our players went into the City team eventually.

 

I remember the cinema; that used to be a 1d on Saturday afternoon. Real live horses on the screen and the old orchestra down below the screen. The old chap, Britten, used to operate it by hand. Afterwards we came out and had a bag of scratchings. We couldn't afford fish 'n' chips then.

Across the road was the Co-op and towards the end of the First War there used to be margarine queues there. We kids would dash down there on Saturday mornings and join the queue, then dash home and go into town and join the queue outside another shop, probably Lipton's on the corner of The Cross or the Home and Colonial opposite. Everything was rationed then, worse than the Second War.

 

At the old St Clement's School they had soup kitchens after the war. They were held in buildings just on the left in the playground. You could get a big jug of thick pea soup for 2d or 3d. They had big jam roly-poly too. You could get it with jam or with currants. We called the jam once a 'piece of sore arm' and the currant one was 'bigs in a bolster'. Bread pudding they called 'ockey boo' or 'azamaganda'. At Williams bakery shop in St John's they used to make big bread puddings. Us kids would go and collect a big bucket of horse manure, sell it for 1/4d and for that we'd get a big piece of this pudding. Pudding cake we called it.

 

There was a shop just up from the Bullring, right after the tram depot which sold tripe and cow heels. And there was another shop down there, an oil shop. The chap that kept that used to lisp a bit and if the kids went in there with fish 'n' chips he used to say, "take thothe beathly things away, I hate thothe things". When he left and the new owner came in there was a fire, set off by some oil drums I think. They saved part of the building and put it back as it was more or less. When they were doing Leo's they couldn't understand what the scarring was. By that old shop there was an entrance up there to a Court and a cottage at the back of Henwick Road. I was in the scouts, the St John's Company, and we met in a hall round the back of what is now Ogle's yard. You went up an entry to it.

 

Across the road was another shop where you could buy oil, an ironmongers it was and we called the chap that ran that Oily Gibson. Up past The Bell was Page's the shoemaker. He was a specialist at making shoes for the crippled. He was also a master bellringer, known to us as 'Tommy the Ring.'

 

I remember one day, walking up Bransford Road, we heard this thing coming. It was a Morris fire engine, big steam thing, coming at about ten miles an hour. The fireman were stoking the fire up - they had a fire to get the steam up when it started. There used to be an old joke - 'Keep the fire going 'til we get there!' It was going to Angel Place by the Five Ways Hotel. The building behind it used to be the fire station.

 

Cripplegate House was owned by a man called Simock when I was a young boy and his girls came to our school. The park was called 'Salt Bottle Park' then and there was a sports ground where we played football. The park was on the New Road side facing the cricket ground, but lower down than that. A chap named Hunt had the farm then by the bridge and he was head groundsman as well. He had a marvellous cricket pitch in those days. He rolled it with a big heavy roller and a horse; and he used a marl, cow manure and water to improve the pitch. There was an old wooden stand where the present one is now - that was for the League. Where the pavilion is, that was the dressing room - visitors down one side, out team the other. They called it the cowshed!

 

Where Lloyds Bank is now used to be a big garden. Someone used to rent it and grow vegetables. There were allotments along Bromwich Road long before the war. It was all gardens there. There used to be a football field as well andthe St John's Albion football team played there. They were in the league and we used to get hundreds of people on the touchline for matches.

In 1923 I went to the Junior Technical School - the Victoria Institute in Sansome Walk. I wanted to be a chemist. I was good at chemistry, always in the top three or sometimes top, but you had to put down £250 to learn the trade. So, when I finished school I went to the Windshields next to The Bedwardine. I'd been going there on Saturday mornings. I also worked on a farm out on Dines Green. Claude Allington the farmer was. He had a black moustache and wore a bowler hat. Whenever you worked there he always had a big barrel of cider and a jug and he'd say, "go and help yourselves. Don't wait for me to ask you".

 

Then I went into the building trade; I worked for a firm called Jeynes in McIntyre Road. There were about ten blokes there. We were always kept in work, doing properties, painting, brickwork - except on one occasion there was no work around Christmas time for a week or fortnight but we didn't mind. As well as being a carpenter I used to do bell ringing. My first ring was about 1923 - on April 23rd for the Queen Mother's wedding. I still ring now, 72 years later.

Tom Lewis

 

In the book is a picture of Tom as a boy. The school caretaker, Mr Thomas, was the St. John's ringer W. H. Thomas, whose colourful ringing diary extracts can be found elsewhere on this site. It is possible that Ted Watkins was Edward Watkins, who rang a peal on the old 50cwt tenor of the pre-1928 bells at Worcester Cathedral, and also took part in local band peals at St. John-in-Bedwardine. Page the shoemaker was William (Bill) Page, a very notable local ringer, who introduced Surprise Major ringing to Worcester. Fittingly, Tom wrote Page's obituary in the Ringing World.

 

                                                                     William Lewis (c. 1886 - 1964)

Tom's father, William Lewis, was also reputed to have been a fine ringer, and another very interesting person. As mentioned in his obituary, he rang the Worcester Cathedral tenor to a peal when no longer a young man.

Though not told in Bill's own words, there are also some recollections of him in Memories of St. John's.

Pip & Tom Michael were a couple who took on and improved The Bell Inn in 1947. This pub is across the road from St. John-in-Bedwardine, and is still enjoyed by ringers after peals there.

In their shared recollections of the pub, the Michael's have fond memories of Bill Lewis.

 

Memories of St. John's, p. 278:

 

Tom Michael: ...All the tradespeople came in; the vicar, Malcolm Richards and the curate Mr Carver - and Bishop Mort. Mr & Mrs Creese were regulars and the bellringers came in every Sunday night.

Pip Michael: Old Mr Lewis the bellringer was the wisest, loveliest man that ever took breath. He was a wonderful man. I remember the vicar preaching at his funeral and the wonderful words he said about him. He was only a blacksmith but so educated and such a marvellous man.

Tom: Now we never used to allow children in the bar, but on Friday night Stephanie and Sarah - my daughter and Pip's sister's daughter, they used to live in the flat above us - would be allowed in to see Mr Lewis, or Uncle Bill as they called him. They used to sit one on each of his knees and whether they had sips of beer or not I don't know. Bill always came in on a Friday night after he'd put the church clock right, and when the girls went out of the bar and up to bed the backs of their dresses were always black because he got so dirty going up to the clock.

Pip: He rang the bells for their birthdays. Sarah's was always very easy because she was born on Christmas Eve. It got a bit difficult with Stephanie because it was always near to Easter.

 

Bill was the Tower Captain at St. John's at that time. It is interesting that Pip's remark about the 'wonderful words' said by the vicar at Bill's funeral, is directly corroborated in David Beacham's Ringing World obituary of Bill.

 

A more detailed account of Bill's life and work is given by Jack Lewis, Bill's son (and younger brother of Tom Lewis.) I'm not sure that Jack was a ringer, but he mentions the ringing at his wedding, on page 164: The service took place at St John's Church. Rev. Carver married us; Mr Protheroe was the organist and they rang the bells for three hours and three minutes, a peal of bob major. Tom rang in that and his mate Reg Woodyatt. Dad din't ring on the occasion.

 

Here are Jack's memories of his father, Bill Lewis.

 

Memories of St. John's, pp. 165 - 167:

 

Dad was born at Upper Wick in old thatched cottage which is still there today. He went to Crown East School first, walking to it along Three Quarter Mile Lane. Then he transferred to St John's School; the old one in School Lane. He passed the labour exam and left school when he was eleven, going to work first as a page boy to Mrs Isaacs at Boughton House. He started going to church then on Sundays with the family but he never really said what his duties were. I'm not sure how old he was when he left there but I know he was an apprentice to Johns the Blcksmith at the bottom of the London Road, next door to an old pub - The Cross Keys. Its all been knocked down and there's flats there now.

 

Walt Johns had the blacksmiths. I remember it from when I went down there as a lad and pumped the bellow. By then there was only dad working there and his striker, Bert Scrivens, all the old 'uns had gone then. When they made the horseshoes dad would shape them and Bert would be swinging away with his great big sledgehammer.

The coal merchants used to bring these great big shire horses in, and the men from the canal barges came up with their horses too.

 

Dad went out at 4.30 on some mornings to do frost-nailing. That was hammering nails into the shoes to stop the horses sliding on the frost. He was bitten through the shoulder once by a shire horse and another one stamped on his foot and smashed a toe. They took some lifting those legs of horses. When Walt Johns died in 1915 he had the Union Jack draped over his coffin. I think he'd been in the Worcestershire Yeomanry or something. Tom can recall being down there at the time. Dad never took over the business, it passed to Mrs Johns then. He carried working there of course until the war, then one morning during the black-out he had an accident. It was early and he ran into an old lady on his bike. She wasn't hurt I believe but dad was off work for a week and Mrs Johns decided to close the business because there wasn't much doing.

 

He went to the Windshields after that. He did ordinary labouring, not smithying. It was a bit of a come down really, mind you he was getting on then of course. It wasn't his trade but they found him something. Then when the war finished he went to work for Pumpy Thomas in Droitwich Road. He was a blacksmith again there and worked with his old mate from No 3 Bromyard Terrace, Fred Giles. They were real old friends and enjoyed a good joke and a pint together. Fred used to wear a big watch and chain. He was a singer with our dad at the church. Pumpy rang the bells as well.

 

Dad was so active. When he walked he used to step it out. I had to run to keep up with him. He was still smithying at Pumpy's when he should have retired, but there was another man working there who was in his eighties. They could work there as long as they wanted to. Dad always wound the church clock by hand - Tom took it over afterwards - and he put the flag on the church. He had great knowledge our dad. The civil war was his forte, and old houses, churches; it was a treat to listen to him. He used to have great conversations with Mr Laflin in The Bell. You couldn't tell the difference between them as regards professions. He was a great speller as well, and a wonderful letter writer. He could put it down together beautifully. I've got a letter he wrote to us. We were on holiday and he had cancer of the lung but didn't know it. He said "don't you get worrying. I've seen the doctor and I'm alright." I still have the letter, and a part of a letter from our sister Florrie who died of T.B.

 

Dad would have worked for longer at Pumpy's but for his lung trouble. He died when he was 78 and his last days were spent with us in Hopton Street. He came to stop with us while mother went into the Royal and we knew it was only a matter of time with him. He'd been a great reader and the last book he had was 'Hatters Castle' by A. J Cronin. We'd seen it on the telly. My wife got the book from the library on the Friday night and he said "I'll read that sometime", but he never did. He had a terrible night on the Saturday and I went to get Dr Steele. He came very quickly. Rev. Richards had been to see him earlier. Then he died on Sunday morning.

Jack Lewis

 

                                                                          Spooky Business

After Bill Lewis had died and son Tom Lewis took over as Tower Captain at St. John's, strange disembodied footsteps would regularly be heard from the tower staircase while the ringers were in the ringing chamber. Tom used to answer these footsteps by calling out things like "I'm OK, Dad!" As soon as Tom retired from ringing, the footsteps stopped. I know several people who heard these footsteps. And you shouldn't dismiss them too readily, as I have heard them myself!

 

In the summer of 2006 or 2007, not long before the branch striking competition, we had quite a poorly attended practice night. As usual, one of the younger learners had to leave the practice early to go home and get to bed. He called up to the tower from the churchyard, having left his coat behind, so I ran down and returned it to him, locked myself back in at the foot of the tower, and climbed back up the staircase. As I approached the ringing chamber I started to hear distinctive, unmistakable, footsteps behind me, but I knew that nobody could be there, as the muniment room at the base of the tower was locked off to both outside and the main church. "Who's that behind you?" asked the tower captain as I came in. "Nobody" I answered, with the footsteps still audible, and he asked again "Who's that behind you?" I turned round, and we both faced the staircase, to hear two final, loud, footsteps, seemingly just round the corner from view! Though unmistakably the sound of footsteps, I seem to remember that they still sounded distant, somehow, and not corporeal. We both looked at each other in surprise. The other ringers didn't share in our experience as they were talking! It is interesting that the tower captain and I should have heard the ghostly footsteps, as he used to tease me about the footsteps when I was younger, and would forecast at Christmas that Tom would would make a ghostly reappearance, depending on how good the ringing was! It was almost as if the entity was aware of these jokes, and had its own sense of humuor. Whether it was still the footsteps of Bill Lewis, or Tom Lewis, or someone else, who knows?!

 

These weren't the only strange experiences I had there. Probably around late 2005 or early 2006, a bell-handling practice on tied bells had finished, in readiness of the main practice. I ended up being left alone in the ringing chamber, while the tower captain was upstairs untying the clappers, and everyone else was congregating downstairs. In the ringing chamber I suddenly felt a strong sensation of not being alone, and looked at the fine plaque on the wall, in memory of Bill Lewis. I then heard a strange sound, like a peculiar kind of whispering, and really did feel as if a presence was on my right hand side. 

 

After Tom's death in 2005, a new plaque in his memory was placed alongside the plaque for his father, both plaques being very similar to one another. I well remember the ceremony that we had for this on Tuesday 29th August 2006, when we ended our practice early and Tom's two sons came up to join us, along with the vicar who said a few words, followed by the tower captain. In the week leading up to this the tower captain had screwed the plaque in place, next to Bill's plaque. He too had the very strange experience of feeling not alone, and in initially having to remove Bill's plaque from the wall, he was very surprised at how easily this came off, almost as if Bill was allowing Tom to rest by his side. (It is possible that the memory of my own strange experience while looking at the plaque was, in fact, late 2006 or early 2007, in the winter immediately after Tom's plaque had been added.)

 

I also remember one dark winter night when we were in the muniment room at the foot of the tower, and the door to the tower staircase was still locked. However, I distinctly and unmistakably heard the sound of a human voice speaking from behind the locked door! This door is next to the large west winodw, though, so it is possible that it could have been the voice of somebody in the churchyard walking by.

 

We were ringing at St. John's one Sunday evening near Christmas, and I unmistakably saw the latch of the ringing chamber door being raised, and the door very slightly opening! That was quite eerie, but it could have easily been someone from the church below, and some time after this a friend at school told me that he once sneaked into the church while we were ringing and peered at us through the ringing chamber door, so this could have been that same time!     

        

                                                                             W. H. Thomas

Some of William Henry Thomas's entertaining ringing diary extracts can be found here, but there are also recollections about him written by his son, Jack Thomas, in Memories of St. John's. (I don't think Jack was a ringer, and is not to be confused with the well-known bellhanger that married Amy Johnson of Hinton-on-the-Green.) WHT was parish clerk of St. John-in-Bedwardine for a very long time, as well as caretaker of the school across the road, though never really advanced much as a method ringer. Here are some of Jack's memories of his father.

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Memories of St. John's, pp. 134 - 137:

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Father was born in 1866 and lived in Sidbury prior to marrying my mother at Welland Church, to which he walked to the ceremony. He worked for Edmond Lane, a coal merchant whose business was just before the County Council depot in Malvern Road. Unfortunately the business went bankrupt and had to close down but father went on to obtain the job of caretaker at St John's School, and 1908 he was invited to become the parish clerk of St John's Church.

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The family lived at 22 Blakefield Road originally, where I was born in 1912...

Father had a huge bunch of keys and he'd always be back and forth from the church checking to see if he had locked the doors. By this time, shortly after I'd been born the family had moved to 17 Bromyard Road. He would be up in the morning ready to attend the 6.30 service, and again at 10.00 - each service in fact. He'd be over at the school as well as attending to his job as caretaker: back and forth between church and school. We rarely saw him as children!

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Being the caretaker involved long hours and hard physical work to support a growing family. He was responsible for the Infants School, the Girls and Boys Schools and the old school in School Lane - that included the heating and cleaning. He had to stoke all fires, check the boilers and make sure everything was working alright. Mother and my eldest sister helped as well in the school holidays. All the floors were scrubbed and you could eat your food off them when they'd finished. All the desks had to be taken out of course. Father also had to be in attendance or be there to lock up after the various functions held at the Infants School, one of which was a gymnastics club. Major Jeynes ran that. He was the instructor and his three sons helped as well. Various social dances were held there as well, including the school New Year's party. 'Tapper' was the MC - all dressed up in his finery.

 

I joined the choir at sometime during the mid 1920s. Father was already a member and sag as tenor. There were on average 16 boys (no girls), 12 men - tenors, basses and one baritone - and three ladies who were altos...

At one time there used to be just six bells in the church which could only ring 'ding dong' chimes - as we called them - to mark the quarter hours. Father had the idea of adding two more in memory of Mr Bowen who had been the headteacher at the boys school. He suggested this I believe in a letter to the newspaper, adding that as well as serving as a memorial, the two extra bells would mean a proper peal and the church clock being able to have a Westminster chime. The idea was taken up and came to fruition in the late 1920s - early '30s. My father rang the bells alongside Tom Lewis.

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...The house was decorated on the outside to celebrate the 1937 Coronation. Father, ever thoughtful, sent me a photograph of it. At the time I was doing a period of army service in Burma and India...

​

Mother was not involved in the church very much, being busy looking after the family. Nora helped out at the vicarage sometimes. She also worked at Kays and then at Bennett's Farm, doing secretarial work for Tom Bennett.

In 1937 a newspaper report recorded that my father had attended his 1,000th wedding - he never missed one! He was also responsible for putting up the banns - couples came to our home to request this of him, and he did it in beautiful handwriting. He retired at that point but then went back to it, and attended even more weddings.

Mother died when she was 74, in 1942. Father died aged 87 in 1953. My sister Marion, the eldest and unmarried was already an earnest worker for the church and succeeded father as the parish clerk. She remained in office until her death in 1982 aged 80.

Jack Thomas

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There are two photos in the church, side by side, of WHT and his daughter in their role as parish clerk. St. John's used to have an Ellacombe chiming apparatus in the muniment room at the foot of the tower, and I believe it was Marion who, unfortunately, tried to play this while the bells were being rung, causing quite a big piece of metal to be chipped off the 7th! This chip apparently used to be kept in a plastic jar in the ringing chamber, but was possibly lost when the tower and bells were refurbished in 2011.

The bold passage about the augmentation is interesting and enlightening. W. Page was always said to be the prime mover for this project, but perhaps the actual idea was WHT's. The back six were cast in 1815 - 1816 when great improvements and extension work was being done on the church building. The present oak frame is probably from this time, and was actually an eight-bell frame, even then. The church had wanted the recast bells to be a ring of eight, but ran out of funds. It is interesting to imagine what the bells would have been like if all eight had been cast in 1816. The augmentation had always been unfinished business - a short piece about St. John's bells was written in The Bell News by its Wigornian editor, greatly encouraging an augmentation. But this was some decades before the project was carried out.   

 

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