2025 03Nympton News Autumn final with bleed - Flipbook - Page 57
New learner Linda Greetham writes
My dad, Brian Drake, was captain of North Tawton tower from 1967 to
2023. Many years ago I asked him if I could learn to ring the
bells. 'When a woman rings bells in my tower, I am off' he said. And that
was that. How times have changed - North Tawton has had many lady
ringers over the years. Instead, I went off and learnt to ring handbells
with Albert Vanstone and we were very successful, winning certificates at
The South West of England music festival and
auditioned for Hughie Greene's Opportunity
knocks. Ringing was a very big part of dad's life and
for years he would disappear on Saturdays and
return with books full of dots - he had been judging
ringing. Probably sat in a room near the bell tower
somewhere across Devon with another judge. And
then of course off to the service afterwards where
the loud and wonderful voices of all the ringers
would resound around the church and finally to the
pub. No doubt to discuss whose rise was the best and
who 'dropped a few clangers'. Dad was presented with
a lovely plaque with the NT Tower and a sally, to mark
his 56 years of captaincy. Sadly, he passed away in May
and a sally from St Giles in the Wood tower was placed
in his coffin.
As you know Martin is now captain of our tower in KN
and has been busy recruiting new ringers. I decided
this was finally my chance to learn
to ring and hopefully make dad
proud I was carrying on for him. I have only had a
couple of lessons and am amazed at how difficult it
is and how hard you have to pull (captain’s note - it
gets easier!) How on earth dad was still ringing into
his 90's I will never know. Recently I had a lesson
from Mog (Martin Mogford) who was very
encouraging and knew of dad and told me I would
make a good ringer - ' It was in the genes'! I do
hope so, though I feel it will be sometime before I
am ringing on Sundays!!
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