A Saturday at Home

It was Saturday and the Eminent Ringer was in a Bad Mood, having been obliged to look after the Four Year Old instead of ringing the customary peal or two. By mid-afternoon the Four Year Old was still going strong, but the Eminent Ringer was bored and fed up. An attempt to learn the new Maximus method for the following day had failed when the Four Year Old had asked for help laying out the train set. When that was done, and hoping the FYO would be occupied for a while, the Eminent Ringer had escaped to the computer in the corner of the room and attempted to use ABEL, but after five minutes the FYO had seen the computer was in use and had demanded to play a game on it. Half an hour of CBeebies games was enough. Time for a more traditional occupation.
“Come and sit on the settee with me and I’ll tell you a story,”
The FYO obligingly logged off the computer , scrambled onto the settee and cuddled up to the Eminent Ringer.
“Once upon a time there were Three B…..” the ER started
“Bears,” groaned the FYO. “I know this one. It’s BORING.”
“That is NOT what I was going to say,” said the ER, deciding hastily to change horses in mid-stream. “Please don’t interrupt. Once upon a time there were three… er.. Bellringers, and they all rang at a lovely three-bell tower in the country.”
“I thought you always said that ringing on less than 8 bells was a complete waste of time and that three bell towers should have their bells compulsorily re-allocated to other churches?”
The ER couldn’t answer this, so continued: “There was a Big Bell Ringer who rang the Big Tenor Bell, a Medium-sized Bell Ringer who rang the Middle Bell, and a Junior Bell Ringer who rang the Treble Bell. They went to the church one day and rang the bells up, then decided to go for a walk.”
“But they should not have left the bells up!” The FYO was horrified. “Why did they want to go for a walk, anyway, when they had just got the bells up?”
“I really don’t know. Perhaps they wanted to go and get some be…er sweets. Don’t interrupt. Anyway a few minutes after they had left a little girl came into the church. Her name was…”
“Goldilocks?” suggested the FYO.
“No of course it wasn’t!” snapped the ER. “Whoever heard of anyone being called ‘Goldilocks?’ Her name was..um..Mary. She saw the bellropes hanging down and decided to try to ring them. First she tried the Big Tenor Bell. The rope was stiff and the sally was thin and hard, but after some effort she managed to pull it off at handstroke. Unfortunatey she pulled it too hard and it set at backstroke, and she couldn’t reach the tail end.”
“Why didn’t she use a box?” the FYO asked. “You always say that it’s much better to use a box rather than clip every backstroke like that useless pr…”
“There wasn’t a box,” the ER said hastily (resolving not to make quite so many comments in front of the FYO in future). The Big Bell Ringer had the rope just the right length for him and no-one else rang that bell. Yes I know that is not very fair (seeing the FYO’s mouth was opening for another interruption) but that is the trouble with three bell towers. Too traditional. Anyway Gol… er Mary left the Tenor Bell and moved on to the Middle Bell. This was quite a difficult bell to ring; the sally was too thick and fluffy for Mary to grip properly, the rope was too long and the bell was very flighty.After a couple of pulls Mary missed the sally and the bell rang itself down. As she didn’t know how to ring a bell up….”
“Well she was not much of a ringer then!” exclaimed the FYO. “You have always said it’s a poor ringer who can’t raise their own bell.”
“Quite,” said the ER, wishing that the FYO were not quite so precocious. “But she couldn’t, so she moved onto the Treble Bell. This was a lovely little bell, the rope was just the right length and Mary had no problem with it at all. She rang away quite happily for nearly ten minutes, when all of a sudden the rope broke.”
“Poor steeple-keeping,” tutted the FYO. “Why hadn’t they been checked?”
“Because they hadn’t. Like last week at St….”. The ER broke off abruptly, remembering that Little Pitchers had Big Ears (and Good Memories).
“Mary was just looking at the broken rope around her feet and still had hold of the sally when the Three Bellringers returned from the pu…er from their walk. They saw the Tenor Bell set at backstroke, and the Middle Bell still swinging gently, and finally Mary holding the broken treble rope. ‘Someone’s been ringing MY bell!’ they all shouted out together. ‘What do you think you are doing, breaking our bells like that?’ Mary explained that the bells were not really broken; she just could not reach the tailend, could not ring a bell up, and that someone should really have noticed that the treble rope was getting worn and needed splicing. The Big Tenor Ringer looked a bit guilty and admitted that he should have checked. ‘But why were you ringing the bells in the first place?’ he asked her. ‘Because they won’t let me ring at the church near me –they say I can’t because I am too young, and a girl! But I taught myself to handle a bell when no-one was around and wanted to try some different bells. And we only have two bells at my church anyway, and usually one person chimes both of them. Please, can’t I join your band?’
The Big Tenor Ringer considered. ‘I have an idea’, he said. ‘There is an empty pit in the belfry. We could add another bell, and then there would be one for you. Then we could ring Bob Minimus – we really are getting a bit fed up with ringing Singles.’ He had also noticed that Mary was very pretty with long golden curls and that the Junior Ringer was looking at her in a very interested way.
And so they did and rang Bob Minimus Happily Ever After. The End.”

The ER suddenly realised that there had been no interruptions for at least three minutes, and looking down found that the FYO was fast asleep. Although a bit peeved that no-one had been listening to the end of the story, the ER reflected that at least there was now a few minutes peace to learn that new Maximus method for the next day….