Hunt is on for Millennium ringers

Oxford has the highest concentration of bells in one area, with 106 bells in 13 towers and in the county there are more than 170 towers.

The plan is to ring the church bells nationwide at midday on January 1, 2000.

David Lane, secretary of the Oxford Society of Change Ringers, which has members all over Oxfordshire, said: "There are five colleges, Magdalen, Merton, New, Lincoln and Christ Church and numerous churches that are all within walking distance.

"We have a unique situation in Oxford because of all the college towers. We don't have enough ringers in Oxford to ring at the same time."

New recruits have signed up in Appleford, Wheatley, Kidlington, Iffley and North Hinksey, but more are needed to help the veterans see in the Millennium in style.

A mainstay of the North Hinksey and St Giles' Churches' ringing team is Bernard Masterman, 54, who is blind and has been ringing for 25 years. He said: "Everybody has to ring from memory, there are no music stands or anything so I'm on the same footing as everyone else.''

Another veteran of the bell-ringing circuit is Alec Gammon, 81, of Oxford Road, Old Marston, who recently celebrated 70 years as a bell-ringer.

He learnt the skill as a choirboy at St Andrews, Headington, and now rings every Sunday at St Nicholas Church, Marston.

His proudest moment was beating the world record for ringing in 1958. A team trained by him rang 12,600 changes in six hours 20 minutes. The previous record was from 1775. Meanwhile, family bell-hanging firm Whites of Appleton, which was established in 1824, is being kept busy by Millennium orders.

Owner Brian White, who is the fifth generation of his family to run the firm, is working on four different sets of bells, including those of Winchester College.

He has recently completed work on bells at Souldern, near Bicester and South Stoke, near Wallingford, after the churches received lottery grants to get their bells up to scratch for the Millennium.

He said: "We're running about four jobs at once which is not the norm. A job takes anything from two months to six months depending on the size of the project. I've taken on extra staff to deal with the orders."

Mr White estimates that his firm has re-hung about 50 per cent of the bells in Oxfordshire since it began.

Mr White is a keen bell-ringer himself and his wife, three daughters, brother, sister and uncle also ring. Reporter Sarah is shown the ropes Dr Ray Rook, who bravely opted to give me a bell-ringing lesson, eyed the innocent-looking ropes hanging from the ceiling at St Lawrence, North Hinksey, Oxford.

"These things are quite dangerous," he said.

"There is a quarter of a tonne of bell on the end of this rope, that can easily take you up."

But he said most people would be safe as they would not be strong enough to hang on when the rope shot up .

Pulling the rope is more difficult than it looks, timing is everything and it would appear that mine is less than perfect.

I began learning the back stroke (no swimming pool involved), which entails tugging on the rope part, and the hand stroke, which means tugging the woolly bit higher up known as the 'sally'.

"Let go!" was Dr Rook's constant cry as I seemed determined to go flying up to the roof. This was followed by "Leave it to me!"

Bell ringing needs a lot of concentration and hand to eye co-ordination but is actually quite relaxing once you have got the rhythm going. Whether the residents of North Hinksey village would agree that my uneven chiming was relaxing is another matter. I can only apologise.

Dr Rook first learned the skill at university in 1955 and has been ringing ever since.

His daughter, Katrina, is also a keen bell-ringer. She now lives in the United States and has been known to travel 800 miles to ring church bells.

A mainstay of the North Hinksey and St Giles' Churches' bell ringing team is Bernard Masterman, 54, who is blind.

He has been ringing for just over 25 years, after a blind colleague recommended the hobby to him.

He said: "It's something you can do as a member of a team with other people. Everybody has to ring from memory, there are no music stands or anything so I'm on the same footing as everyone else.

"There are certain types of rings which I can't manage as easily as others. The rope hangs through a rope gate. On some rings these gates are much higher up and the ropes aren't so steady. They move about and I have difficulty catching them." Mr Masterman follows the pattern of the bells, known as 'methods', by picking out the order of the bells by the sound they make.

Most people combine that skill with looking at the ropes as well, although musicians often use the same methods as Mr Masterman.

A veteran of the bell-ringing circuit is Alec Gammon, 81, of Oxford Road, Old Marston, who recently celebrated 70 years as a bell ringer.

He learnt the skill as a choirboy at St Andrews, Headington, and now rings every Sunday at St Nicholas Church, Marston.

His proudest moment was beating the world record for ringing in 1958. A team trained by him rang 12,600 changes in six hours 20 minutes. The previous record was from 1775.

"I discovered something that day," said Mr Gammon. "When you go to walk away after ringing for that long, your knees won't move. I learnt it was a good thing to bend them."

Family bell-hanging firm, Whites of Appleton, which has been going since 1824, is being kept busy by Millennium orders.

Owner Brian White, who is the fifth generation of his family to run the firm, is working on four different sets of bells at the moment, including those of Winchester College.

He has recently completed work on bells at Souldern, near Bicester and South Stoke, by Wallingford, after the churches received lottery grants towards getting their bells up to scratch for the Millennium.

"We're being kept very busy," he said.

"We're running about four jobs at once which is not the norm. A job takes anything from two months to six months depending on the size of the project.

"I've taken on extra staff to deal with the orders." Mr White estimates that his firm has re-hung about 50 per cent of the bells in Oxfordshire since it began.

Mr White is a keen bell ringer himself and his wife, three daughters, brother, sister and uncle all ring as well. Facts about bell-ringing

Another name for bell-ringing is campanology, meaning the science of bell -ringing. The word comes from the Latin for the type of bell used in a tower, campana.

There are 35,000 bell-ringers in the UK and 2,241 in Oxford Diocese. There are 5,000 towers with five or more bells in the UK.

The largest hanging bell in the world is the Tsar Kolokol (King of Bells) in Russia, which is 19ft high, 22.5ft in diameter and weighs about 200 tons. It has never been rung.

One of the most famous bells in the world, Great Tom, is in Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. It was cast in London in 1681 and weighs 7.5 tons.

The first hanging bell is said to have originated from an Italian Bishop, Paulinus in 400AD, who hung a copper or bronze kettle upside down on top of his church so it could be rung as a bell.

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