I’ve added a banner to the web-site. It’s like the main picture on your Facebook page and provides a common header to all pages. I used the picture we took for the service at St Dunstan-in-the-West, but I would like a better one.
As with Facebook, the banner is a cropped version of a full-size picture. Any suggestions ? Please send a regular picture and I will crop it to size. If there are lots of pictures, I will implement a ‘banner of the month’ scheme !
Morag has been associated with Sion College for many years, so when she arranged the Founders Day Service at St Dunstan-in-the-West on July 5th, it seemed only reasonable to arrange for a band drawn largely from St Dunstan’s in Stepney to ring before the service.
St Dunstan has recently had a new set of bells installed, so there was a high degree of interest from DRC members in attending. Entering the ringing chamber, you are immediately confronted by an enormous aluminium fire ladder protruding into the centre of the ringing circle. Dickon soon encouraged a few of the stronger (or easily bullied) members into manhandling it out of the way so that ringing could commence.
DRC band at St Dunstan’s-in-the-West. From left – Mike Todd, Joe Taylor, Jonathan Slack, Ben Meyer, Andrew Larsen, Greg Rose, Elizabeth LeMoine, Janet Archibald, Dickon Love
The 10 bells are fairly light, but ring and sound very nicely. Jonathan called some rounds on 10, and some Steadman triples – all nicely struck.
Morag has also provided a link to a site that showcases the new bells and their installation
http://london.lovesguide.com/dunstan-in-the-west.htm
Picking between competing in a striking contest and watching the first British contestant in the mens’ doubles for seventy years is never an easy choice, but Elizabeth picked a band happy to travel to Colliers Wood for the annual Surrey Striking Competition. Despite a preference for non-competitive ringing, our social instincts won the day. A few of us had already spent the morning on a training session for bob doubles so we decided to truly alienate our partners for the day.
Our record in these events is mixed to put it kindly, but we consider ourselves willing travellers – even to zone three on occasion.
Colliers Wood was a new tower for most of us, and we were initially drawn fifth out of five bands, but swapped with the last band who were waiting for a late-arriving contestant. Listening to the first band, we had a few concerns as the bells definitely sounded a bit ‘light’. When it came to our turn, Elizabeth cunningly called a few changes so that we had a quick try on leading. This was Elizabeth’s first go at conducting in a competition, so we had practiced the routine on the previous Tuesday and Elizabeth had practiced shouting loudly. Both appeared to have paid off as we finished second out of five bands to an excellent Croydon effort. A scratch team of experts and beginners entered at the last minute and actually had the fewest faults, but were not placed as the official winners because of some reason that I can’t remember.
DRC Band in Surrey Striking Competition 2012. From left – Mike Todd, Elizabeth LeMoine, Joe Taylor, Alison Hammond, Andrew Larsen, Morag Todd
The best part about going second is that you are then free to drink the polypin of beer considerately provided by the organisers (as evidenced in our team photo). The childrens’ party that had been going in the adjoining hall then sent over their leftover food. I’ve never seen sushi at a childrens’ party before, but then I’ve never been to Colliers Wood before either and standards are obviously rather different there to where I grew up (Bristol – a bit more faggots and peas).
So, the editor dashed off home to repair matrimonial damages, while the rest of the band chatted with our Surrey hosts. Many thanks to Surrey for their organisation and hospitality; thanks to Elizabeth for her conducting. See you next year !
On Saturday June 1st, several DRC cars headed off to Tooting on the first leg of our Spring outing.
I was fortunate to be offered a ride in Trisha’s new ‘eBay’ car. Although Alison sat in the back with the maps, all of her instructions were ignored while Trisha and I decided on a sequence of incorrect directions – even managing to point in the opposite direction a few times. Eventually, Trisha got fairly close to the Church (All Saints at Tooting) and threw us out promising to park the car and find us later. Arriving late did mean we didn’t have the fag of ringing up some astonishingly light bells.
Andrew and Jennifer a bit perturbed by some unexpectedly light bells
Leaving Tooting for Streatham, Andrew and Trisha continued to ignore Alison’s sensible directions with predictable results.
St Leonard’s was a pleasant ring of eight and Trisha’s cunning parking ensured a quick exit on our way to The Prince of Wales pub at Cheam. This had been recommended by the Cheesemans’ and was a bit of a hit with decent beer and large portions of good food.
All Saints at Benhilton (in Sutton) was a lovely church with eight good bells. At this point the webmaster realised that Andrew Clarke had planned an outing covering all the places in London that the webmaster had lived in during his first 10 years in London – unfortunately he didn’t ring bells then, so hadn’t been into any of the churches before.
Ed and David resting after their efforts
Some interesting scheduling by Mr Clarke then had us going back to within 50 yards of the Prince of Wales in Cheam to ring at St Dunstan.
The final church was St Mary at Ewell which had the best ringing chamber paint job that the editor has ever seen.
Ewell from above
So, a big thank you to Andrew Clarke for arranging an interesting collection of towers in a part of London that most of us hadn’t rung at before. Thanks to Jonathan (a.m.) and David Cloake (p.m.) for conducting the ringing, and thanks to Morag for some good photos.
Members of Docklands were involved in three quarter peals rung on 3 June 2012 to mark the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Thames Procession. All details can be found on Bell Board:
—— Waterloo at noon —— Rotherhithe at 4.30pm —— Stepney at 8pm ——
Special mention is due to Andrew Smith ringing his first ever quarter (well done!), Alison Hammond, ringing her second (well done!), Andrew Clark conducting his first of Triples (fantastic!), Kevin Turner ringing his first quarter of Grandsire Triples (well done!) and Greg Rose covering on Stepney’s Tenor for the first time (way to go!). Andrew Clark, Ed Bucknall and Elizabeth LeMoine rang in all three bands.
We’d like to thank visitors who helped to make up our bands. Graham Slade, Tower Captain at Hurst in Berkshire pitched up at Waterloo to join the practice whilst waiting for the Thames Procession to begin. He willingly joined the quarter peal band instead (relieving Trisha for more pressing duties!). John Moore and Iain Davey from Balcombe and Crawley respecitvely, last minute recruits roped in at Friday’s Camberwell practice, enabled us to ring Triples at Rotherhithe. Their bonus was access to Rotherhithe steeple for great views of the dispersing procession vessels. Sebastian Lucas, Liam Sims and Tom Lawrance, members of the Foster Lane Band coming from other performances elsewhere, enabled us to ring Triples at Stepney. Thanks to all for helping out!
Well done to everyone for contributing to the celebrations and for a perfect 3 out of 3!