Please note that there was no Parish Magazine in August due to the indisposition of the graphic designer. The report below is what was originally written for the August issue and will be combined with the September issue if and when published.
As reported in last month’s Magazine, at the beginning of June four of our ringers joined with other ringers from the Weald area on the ultimate bell ringing holiday – to Scotland. With the Church of Scotland being Presbyterian in nature those churches with bells are few and far between since Presbyterians do not generally have bells in their churches. Consequently there are less than twenty rings of bells in the whole of Scotland, which is just over half the number in our own Maidstone District alone! The ten day trip necessitated some intricate planning, for which we are grateful to Chris Bassett and Tim Munt, the latter of whom is a regular visitor to our practices. It also meant lots of driving – around 800 miles in addition to the journey from Kent and back.
Looking ahead, August is normally a quiet month with many people away on holiday. Not so for our ringers this year. There is a wedding requiring bells on Saturday 1st August and then the following week on Saturday 8th August we will be ringing for the wedding of local ringer Stephen Bassett and Becky Mahoney. Following the wedding we will be attempting a peal (around three hours’ continuous ringing) to celebrate the event.
Then, on Saturday 15th August, our ringers are likely to be out in force at the annual District Ringers’ Barbeque at Marden.
We do not currently have any visiting bands of ringers scheduled to ring our bells in August, so apart from the weddings mentioned above we will just be ringing on our normal Tuesday practice evening and for the regular Sunday Services.