Muscle power high in the tower
In a summer series, the Herald talks to people whose jobs are outside the ordinary. Today: Rings the church bells
When Michael Stone’s boss told him he needed to move halfway around the world to New Zealand for the job, his first thought wasn’t of the weather, or house prices, or even the laidback lifestyle of his new home.
Instead it was only, “Do they have bells?”
“I checked there were bells here and then said ‘okay’,” Stone told the Herald from the tower of Auckland’s St Matthew-in-the-City.
Giant bells in church towers, and the ability to ring them, was the dealbreaker in the 1980s for the now 80-year-old, who has been a bellringer since an uncle, quite literally, showed him the ropes aged 11.
When so much in the world is now mechanised, it is still muscle — physical and memory — that powers the bells inside churches, such as St Matthew’s, which retain the tradition.
Creating that chorus of ding dongs isn’t as easy as just pulling on a rope a few times. For one thing the bells are heavy — the largest of the eight bells at St Matthew’s weighs just over a tonne — and the unskilled could find themselves flung into the air.
And bellringers like Stone must learn long, number-based compositions which can keep them ringing for hours. “This is our music, but you don’t have it in front of you, it’s all in your brain.”
Working as part of a team is like being part of a big family, and that extends to sharp rebukes if someone stuffs up — no exceptions, Stone said. “If the Queen was ringing and she made a mistake she would get yelled at too.”
One of the longest compositions is known as a “full peal” which includes 5040 changes — where the bells’ order is varied — and takes about three hours.
Stone has done a full peal about 1500 times and described long hours in the bell tower as “relaxing”.
“You’ve got to concentrate, you can’t think about other things. It’s a discipline.”
Despite the effort and concentration of those involved, there are sometimes complaints from the public, including one pyjama-clad man who climbed the steep and narrow spiral staircase to share his colourful language-laden fury with those in the bell tower one Sunday morning.
Stone wasn’t bothered — the bells had done what they were supposed to. “I said, ‘we’ve done our job, we got you into church’.”