A peal appeal: bellringer shortage as King Charles’s coronation looms
It is supposed to be a day when all the UK’s 38,000 church bells ring out to mark the coronation of Kings Charles but some may stay silent amid a shortage of campanologists.
Since a call went out from the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers (CCCBR) last autumn for new recruits to join 30,000 existing campanologists, about 1,750 have come forward. Not all have followed through, but many are in the process of being trained. Other volunteers have made direct approaches to local churches.
But there is still a considerable shortfall to be made up if all the UK’s church bells are to be rung and there is now insufficient time to train new starters in the month before coronation day.
Some of the gaps would be made up by individual ringers dashing from one church to another, said Vicki Chapman of the CCCBR. “We might need some ringers to go to several churches in one day,” she said. “We’re hoping that the bells ring at as many parish churches as is humanly possible.”
It took up to 20 hours to teach a new recruit to ring a solo bell and “a lot longer” to learn how to ring in a group, Chapman said. Experienced ringers were going “all out” in their efforts to get rookies up to scratch before coronation day on 6 May. “The next four weeks are going to be pretty intensive.”
Bellringing was “more about technique than brute force”, but it required physical stamina and mental agility, Chapman said, and the age range of ringers was “nine to 90”.
A quarter peal lasts about 45 minutes and a full peal can last up to three and a half hours; each church’s offering in the “Ring for the King” programme will depend on the ability of its ringers, according to Chapman.
“Our focus is on continuing with those recruits we have, rather than needing more, and finalising our own preparations for the day and the rest of the bank holiday weekend, when bells will be supporting other community
events.
“We want to encourage our new recruits to stay beyond the coronation. Hopefully they’ll have found a new community and a new lifelong interest.”
The coronation service at Westminster Abbey will take place on the morning of Saturday 6 May, although the time has not yet been announced. After the service, the king and the queen consort will return to Buckingham Palace in a “coronation procession” that will include other members of the royal family.
Church bells rang across England last June to mark the platinum jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, and many were rung again, fully muffled, on her death in September.
Numbers of bellringers have been declining in recent years, accelerated by the Covid pandemic when lockdowns and social distancing made group activities and teaching impossible.