Us and Them (1)

1 – A lot of what we think and talk about as ringers revolves around the ringing itself: what we do, how we do it, when we are going to do it, with whom we are going to do it, and so on. As individual ringers, we might be more preoccupied with learning methods, with the difficulties of handling, or with organising the ringing. A few of us also spend time trying to help non-ringers to understand the fascinating world of ringing – the nature of the skills themselves, the richness of the heritage tradition, the unique nature of the music, the evolution of the technology, the social history, and so on.

2 – Many bands today find things difficult – they never seem to have enough ringers, and the ringers that they have, find it a hard to reach a good standard of performance, and even harder to extend their repertoire beyond the most basic methods. Many influences can lead in this direction, and once established, a state of continued ‘struggling’ can seem inevitable.

You might wonder what connection there is between the two previous paragraphs. If you recognise the state of affairs in (2) you might have dismissed the final part of (1) as of no relevance to you. ‘We haven’t got time to do things like that – we have our hands full trying to keep the bells ringing’. ‘All we need from non-ringers is for them to come forward as new recruits, but we can’t seem to get any’. ‘No one wants to give up the time for ringing these days, there are too many competing attractions’. ‘Anyway, ringing isn’t very exciting in a struggling tower’. I have often heard those sentiments, if not those actual words.

At the AGM, there was a discussion on the state of ringing, and it was clear that some of us see things as ‘the glass being half full’, while others of us saw it as ‘the glass being half empty’. As a result (I’m not quite sure how) I was asked to write some thoughts in the Newsletter about the relationship between ringers and non-ringers. Obviously that includes recruitment, but a relationship that starts and ends with recruitment isn’t much of a relationship. I believe it is important to cultivate better awareness of, and a respect for, ringing among non-ringers in the communities within which we live and ring.

I would like to start with a story.

Begging bowl or welcome sign?

Imagine that you are walking down the street of life, and you see a beggar sitting on the pavement. Next to him is a sign, not saying ‘wife and kids to support’ but ‘Ancient art and historic bells to support’. And he is not asking you to drop money into a hat, he wants you to give up an evening a week to learn to ring bells with him. You’ve seen pictures of people swinging on bell ropes, and you wouldn’t want your friends to know you did something odd (even if you had the time, which you don’t) so you make your excuses and pass by. Of course if you met someone asking for money to restore the ancient church bells, which were becoming unringable, you probably would make a donation, because you quite like the sound of church bells, and you can afford it. You might even tell your friends about it, because heritage projects are the sort of good cause that you and your friends like to support.

Now imagine that you are walking down the same street of life, and you see a poster saying ‘Welcome to the fascinating world of ringing’. Next to it is someone smiling at you, who asks if you know what ringing is about. You say not really, but you like the sound it makes, and he invites you to step into a small exhibition about ringing. You aren’t in a hurry, so you go inside. There are pictures and models that show how ringing evolved, how bells are made and how they work. There is even an explanation of how bell ‘methods’ work, which you don’t understand, but it looks fascinating. There are pictures of ringers old and young, big and small (you didn’t realise bellringers were so diverse) and they all seem such nice, ‘normal’ people. You see a video of bells being rung, and you notice that one of them is being rung by a young girl standing on top of a large wooden box so she can reach the rope. Then you realise the same girl is standing next to you. She is 17 now, but was 14 when the video was made. She tells you that the bell she was ringing weighed ¾ ton, and she explains the technique of ringing a heavy bell. You are amazed. You look around the room and you can instantly see who the other ringers are, because they are all wearing tee-shirts with a big bell saying ‘I’d rather be bellringing’. You begin to understand how people get hooked on ringing, and you leave the exhibition glad that you took the time to look round, and feeling very positive about ringing and admiring the obvious skill and enthusiasm of the ringers.

These two stories paint deliberately extreme pictures, and there are many possibilities in between, but I hope they will help you to put yourself in the position of ‘them’ rather than ‘us’. ‘They’ are the non-ringing public, who typically know hardly anything about ringing (and what little they do know may well be untrue) but most of them like to hear ringing. So let’s think about the outcomes of these two stories.

The beggar didn’t get any recruits, and went home feeling as miserable as ever. Maybe he didn’t expect much success, based on previous experience. The people who walked past him remained just as ignorant about ringing as they were before, and they may even have got the impression that ringing must be dying out.

The mini exhibition succeeded on several fronts. A lot of people saw it and found it very interesting. They enjoyed themselves, and they went away much more knowledgeable about ringing. They were impressed with the enthusiasm and friendliness of the ringers, as well as with their obvious skill and dedication. Some of them intended to take up the offer to go and see the bells and ringers in action one day. The ringers went away feeling positive, because they could sense the interest in what they were doing, and the people they spoke to were very appreciative.

But the exhibition didn’t get any recruits! It might have done, but for the sake of argument, let’s assume that no one volunteered on the spot. Even in recruiting terms, the exhibition sowed seeds. Many people went away feeling positive about ringing, and some of them in the future might decide they would like to try it. But even if they don’t, they will provide a more fertile environment for others to do so. They might encourage their children to take up ringing. They might show admiration rather than scorn when a friend thinks about doing so, and thus tip the balance in favour.

But regardless of hard nosed recruitment, we should care about the people in the communities that we live in. We impose our performances and our practices on them, we live among them. If we are proud to be ringers, we should want other people to understand why. Ringing has a fascinating story to tell. We should not try to keep it to ourselves.

I hope I have explained why it is important for us to develop positive relationships with non-ringers. This article has been about motivation. In a future article, I will discuss things from a more practical perspective.

Article originally printed in the spring 2010 Sonning Deanery Branch Newsletter, 

  John Harrison, March 2010

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