Listen to half an hour of peals from St Faith's
St. Faith’s Brentford will be joining the joyous peals across the country this Friday from 6.00 to 6.30pm to celebrate St. George’s Day. For this extraordinary event, as a Parish blending the old and the new, we have advertised for volunteer ringers on the web and twitter. We had an instantaneous and very positive response. The lucky ringers, taking part in this historic half hour of bell ringing are Julia Quilliam and her team.
The Reverend Derath Durkin adds “we’re really pleased to be able to participate with the rest of our Nation, as the day is celebrated. Fortunately you can’t hear me singing ‘the bells ring out on St Georges Day’ to the tune of the Pogue’s Fairy Tale of New York… and “Ring out those bells Julia” to the tune of Little Donkey!!!
The central council of church bell ringers writes that early in 2009 a campaign was initiated to encourage the celebration of St George's Day, 23rd Apri l by ringing out bells from as many English church towers as possible. It received positive coverage in both the Sunday and weekday National Press and throughout many local papers.
It would be great to build on that initiative in 2010 and this can only be achieved with the participation of many more bell ringers.
Bell ringing is universally identified as the quintessential 'Sound of England'. The unique cascading sound of our bells announces not only Christian feast days, but for generations has played an integral part in the Nation's pageantry at times of sadness and joy; notably Coronations and momentous events such as the end of the two World Wars.
Bells celebrate the culture and architecture of our Nation in a very special way. They are brought alive by the skills of ringers and the art and science of change-ringing; created in England and practised now in many parts of the world that have strong connections with our country.
What a splendid and rich inheritance. Some towers already have a long-standing tradition of marking St George's Day with dedicated ringing. This year it would be wonderful to encourage as many Ringing Associations as possible to participate in this event with special peals, quarter peals or general ringing. The ideal would be to start ringing at an agreed time on Friday, 23rd April - say 6pm in the evening - in a collective act of celebration of England, St George and change-ringing. Whether you can ring for half an hour, an hour or three hours - it will be greatly appreciated.
April 20, 2010
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