Bells,Boatwatching and all the Volunteers

Sarah is eager to take me up to her bell tower and I am keen to go.  The idea of small Sarah swinging ecstatically on a bell rope like the Hunchback of Notre Dame is delightful. We get up early because we are going to meet John, the Master of the bell tower and another bell ringer  called Joan, who together will “ring up” the bells for an afternoon wedding.  I have no idea what this means but count myself lucky to be about to witness such a thing

It is a bit of a dreary morning with a nasty little wind blowing. “I hope the bride’s got her veil nailed down” says Sarah as we pass through the strange gates into the churchyard.  There are two gates under a little roof, each of which has a corner chopped out so as to accommodate a long slab of stone with a cross on it.  “For the coffin bearers to rest while the mourners settle themselves down in the church” says Sarah.  She also points out a leaning gravestone with a poem about the three year old beneath who died in agony following the ingestion of a stone.  The grass is tall and damp and we hasten through into the church.  In a little while Joan arrives and opens the tower door for us. There is a narrow circular stone staircase that winds round and round with a rope for holding on to.  We go first to the room with the ropes hanging down and charts of numbers. Apparently it costs 140 pounds to have bells at your wedding – twenty each for the bell ringers and twenty for the watcher who climbs a stepladder and peers out of a little window in the rope room ready to signal when the bride is near and the bells need to tumble. After this we go up more little triangular steps to see the bells themselves, six of them sober and dark in two rows.   Somehow they looked moody and lonely to me, and a far cry from the joyous pealing they will be putting out in the afternoon.  The last bit of the climb was to the roof which was very windy and commanded a view, very useful for spotting enemy incursions in the warlike days of yore.

We return to the rope room to wait for the Master, John, and then Joan gets a phone call to say he’s overslept and will be half an hour late.  It turns out he’s a member of the volunteer First Responder team and was called out at 4am and fell into a deep sleep after the emergency.  First responders go to anyone in trouble in the village and assess whether to call an ambulance from Plymouth, which has to cross the Tamar on the ferry if required.  Millbrook seems to run seamlessly because of all its volunteers doing this and that.

When John comes he’s full of sparkle despite (or maybe because of) his night of drama and I get to see the preparation of the bells two by two.  Alas there is no leaping about a la Quasimodo but it is fascinating none the less. The purpose of the exercise is to get the bells stuck in an  upside down position all ready to drop and ring out when the bride comes.  The two ringers have the ropes looped round their hands and with each pull the bell gets higher and they let a bit of rope go.  Both ringers seem to do their work effortlessly, just bending their knees and pulling the velvety part of the rope called the sally along with the hempen bit.  The sound makes me feel slightly tearful, strange and ancient and obedient to the ropes. Once locked into position the ringers rest and we go down the steps to the bottom.  Since we arrived the flowers for the wedding have come and each pew has a little bunch on the end.

Our next mission is to visit the Coastwatch Station high on a clifftop, also run by volunteers (including Sarah of course)  Their job is to keep a sharp eye on all boats and ships visible out at sea, record their names or descriptions and co-ordinate rescue if anything happens to anyone.  There’s a helicopter, which can be called in to winch up casualties.  I never know how to do justice to views but this one is vast and the little boats are tiny as ladybirds. There is a magnificent telescope and a radar to help with identification.

“Ah Sarah” says the woman volunteer in her smart uniform. “Thank you so much for the spoons. They raised twenty pounds!” It seems she’s also something important in the Women’s Institute where Sarah is giving a talk on our Great Aunt Bobby who was a policeperson in a munitions factory in WWII.  Sarah takes the opportunity to report the closure “until further notice” of the village doctor’s surgery and dark suspicions are exchanged. In the event it turns out that some mad person had more than once put superglue in the lock of the place.  I comment to Sarah about how news gets about.  “Yes,” she says it’s predigital.  You don’t need the internet to know what’s going on here” Everyone is their own carrier pigeon.

The last thing we do this day is attend the village hall for the film club’s monthly movie which is “Filmstars don’t die in Liverpool”.  It’s all about a love relationship between a young man and a fifty plus actress. Most of us audience are into our seventies and like the film a lot.

I’m impressed by all the facets of this village life that I have been privy to but hope Sarah behaves herself because there’s no question that everyone will know if she doesn’t.