Eliza loves the bells. Sadly, at present, A levels are getting in the way of doing a lot of ringing but over the summer she had a marvellous time ringing, not only for local churches in Barrow, Cossington, Prestwold and Loughborough, but around the country in Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and Norfolk on tours.

She says it’s a great way of life as you ring with others so it’s fun and sociable and you can earn money as well. Ringing for a wedding gives you £20 for 20 minutes – not bad for a 17 year old especially as in summer she does an average of a couple of weddings a week. Ringing for a wedding isn’t too tricky either as well-known methods are chosen such as Grandsire and Stedman with sometimes a final flourish of all the bells being rung at once called ‘Firing It Out’, for good luck.

But ringing, to Eliza, has been a way of life for many years as her parents love it too and started her off at six. The family didn’t live in Barrow then so Eliza’s first church bells were in Moreton-in-Marsh in Gloucestershire. Now Eliza regularly rings for Holy Trinity on Sundays and practises once a week with the Barrow bell ringing team. Her great ability means that she is also a member of the Leicestershire Bell Ringing Youth Team which did well in the National Youth Bell Ringing Championships this year. They came 5th out of 20 teams in the Higher Section so that was very good indeed. Their team was made up of eight ringers, a mixture of boys and girls. They had to ring six bells so had taken two people as spares in case one fell ill. And Eliza also sits on a judging panel. This panel doesn’t judge the whole ring itself just a part of it – how evenly the bells are being struck. 
Oh, there’s a lot to it, this bell ringing business. I’d need a double page spread to explain even the rudiments so I’ll just say that Eliza told me the two most basic of rules of ringing: don’t look up and don’t talk!

But what does the future hold? Once A levels are out of the way Eliza hopes to have a gap year working at Taylor’s Bell Foundry in Loughborough and then go on to study history at either York or Lincoln University. Note: both universities have magnificent cathedrals with wonderful sets of bells. What an intelligent choice for someone who loves bell ringing so much and wants to learn more! And after that – who knows, museum work perhaps, but Eliza is sure that whatever career she enters she’ll always ring.

Gaynor Barton