Perth Bell Tower Ringers Announced Best In The Southern Hemisphere
A team of bell ringers from the Bell Tower Perth were announced as the best ringers in the Southern Hemisphere at the 56th annual ANZAB Ringing Festival in the Nepean Valley, NSW.
ANZAB, the Australian and New Zealand Association of Bellringers were formed in Parramatta in 1962. The association’s objectives include fostering relationships between ringers, promoting and providing education and training in the ancient art of change ringing.
Prior to the Festival each year, teams in Australia and New Zealand who ring in towers with ten bells or more, have the opportunity to pre-record a piece of precision ringing and enter the competition. The aim of this demonstration ringing is to achieve what is called ‘perfect striking’. This means there are no faults, pauses, clips or errors within the ringing sequence. The perfection should be such that it almost sounds automatic or mechanical, rather than ten people working as a team.
THE TEAM
The Perth team was led by Andrew Ling, the WA District Ringing Master and conducted by Richard Offen – Deputy Chair the Swan Bells Foundation. The remainder of the winning team included Kate Thomas, Josclyn Sloan, Ian Harris, Mike Colinson, Callum Crofton, Andrew Baxter, Lloyd Cartwright and Rhys Greenhalgh.
THE RINGING
For this competition the Bell Tower team rang a ‘Grandsire Caters’ practising the 400 year old ancient art of change ringing. The first recorded scientific peal was rung three hundred years ago in Norwich. Many of the method names and ringing terms are derived from archaic language, which modern day ringing keeps alive.
The origin of the name Grandsire has been lost in the mists of time, although it could relate to a grand master, or patriarch as the leader of others, or first. The method was devised around 1650, most likely by Robert Roan, who became master of the College Youths Ringing Society in 1652.
The Bell Tower management and staff join together to congratulate their volunteer ringers on being awarded the title of, BEST RINGERS IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.
The Bell Tower – Home of the Swan Bells
Barrack Square, Riverside Drive, Perth