News

Denstone Hall Farm Shop

Denstone Christmas

On Thursday November 14th we visited Denstone Hall Farm Shop for the first of our Christmas visits this year.

The shop was decorated ready for the Christmas season. Hundreds of sparkling lights. and staff dressed in festive costumes added to the atmosphere. We played for two sessions in the restaurant, with everyone obviously enjoying all of the traditional tunes and carols. We were told later that our music echoed throughout the shop.

We enjoyed complimentary hot drinks and mince pies during the break, and were given a generous donation towards our chosen charity, the Dougie Mac Hospice.

We hope that we bought a little extra Christmas spirit at the beginning of this special season. We thoroughly enjoyed our evening!

Crich Tramway Village

AHR at Crich

Saturday 9th November

We were pleased to be invited to play at the Crich Tramway Village special event 'A Journey through Time and Light'. We played in one of the exhibition halls amongst trams and tram parts from across the years. It was a good venue with nice acoustics and space to allow visitors to stop and listen or to continue looking at the trams. We played two sets of mostly traditional songs with a pause in the middle for for a very welcome cup of hot chocolate!

Heart of England Rally

AHR at Heart of England Rally
Rough Close Village Hall

Saturday 19th October 2024

We were warmly welcomed on Saturday 19th October to the Rally at the village hall in Rough Close. There were five handbell teams in total playing that afternoon and we were all set up around the edge of the Hall.
The event was hosted by The Inn Ringers, who kindly provided tea and excellent cakes for us throughout the afternoon. Each team took it in turns to ring two pieces in order around the room, starting with The Inn Ringers, who were very good as usual and played well with gusto!
The Kingsbury ringers were next with a group of 5, including two ‘guests’, playing 12 bells with Elaine the leader playing 4 in hand, which she did very competently.
The Gnosall Handbell Ringers were pleased to have a full complement of ringers again and to welcome back their conductor. Their pieces included Highland Cathedral accompanied by a drum.
It was good to see the Madeley Handbell Ringers who have recently joined the Heart of England and played a number of Taizé Chants.
We were the last to play in each section, our first two tunes were played from music notation and we rang well, which we were pleased about. 
We had a break for tea and cakes and to buy raffle tickets and also to chat to other team members, everyone was very friendly and we were complemented on our performance. 
We had lots of fun and everyone seemed to have enjoyed our get together. 
 

Mayfield Friday Club 12 Bell Concert

Have a Go

Friday 2nd August 2024

We turned up for the Handbell Concert at the Church Hall in Mayfield and then started to unload the bells and music stands. We carried them inside only to discover that The Friday Club didn’t meet in this hall either on Friday or on any day of the week! So we loaded up the equipment back into the car and drive further into the village until we arrived at another hall. 

There they all were, The Friday Club, waiting for us, with lemon drizzle cake at the ready for us to eat when we had finished our Concert!

We set up all the music stands and unpacked all the bells onto the tables. We then turned and faced the audience. There were a good number of them, with men as well as women! They were all very welcoming. Wendy gave them some information about the handbells to start with and then we began to play.

I don’t think any of them had heard handbells playing music before, only church bells ringing.

They settled down to listen to us intently and and clapped us after each set of tunes, they seemed very impressed and recognised many of the tunes we played. Quite a few if the audience asked questions about our ringing in between sections of our repertoire. They seemed very interested and appreciative of our efforts to entertain them.

We were served tea and lovely cake when we had finished and many of the members came up to have a go and try out our bells. I helped one man, who wanted to have a go on the chimes. I showed him how to play a chime and how to stop it after he had let it ring out.

At the end of the concert, when we had packed everything away, the Vicar of the Church gave a talk about how he came to study at College to become a Vicar in the beginning of his career, he was born in Sri Lanka.

It was an enjoyable afternoon and they all seemed keen to come to our Concerts later on this year to hear us play with the full team.

Jean

Alton Summer Concert and Tea

Tea after the concert

Early this year, it was suggested that the Alton Handbell Ringers could try hosting a summer concert with an informal atmosphere, where members of the audience would be encouraged to try their hand at bell ringing, alongside enjoying cups of tea and cakes. This would also be an opportunity to raise money to assist in our charitable donations.

And so it was, that after extensive study of the main summer sporting event calendar, the 28th July was agreed upon as this did not clash with the Euro football competition or Wimbledon.  The concert would be held in Alton village hall.

We were unsure what the attendance would be but were pleased with the number of people there.  A group of hand bell ringers and their guests from Madeley joined our audience.

We assembled early to practice both as a full team and for twelve bell ringing which was included in the concert to demonstrate a typical care home performance.

As usual, Wendy put together an interesting variety of pieces, and for the first time ever, we performed four pieces from stave music as opposed to the numerical format we normally play from.  We were a ringer short for our first pieces and one of the Madeley ringers bolding came forward to ring with us.  Our finale was Highland Cathedral which is now a firm favourite with the team.

After our main performance, Wendy and Alan played two pieces, ringing four bells each.  These were the hymn Immortal Invisible and Alouette.

After this six of us played four pieces on twelve bells.

We received some very positive feedback after the concert and we encouraged people to come and look at our music and to have a go.  This resulted in an attempt to play Resound and Rejoice which was, let’s say different! Jean’s grandchildren took part and it was great to see them having a go.

All in all, a very successful afternoon which was enjoyed by all. I thought that we all rang very well.

Thank you to all who provided the delicious cakes.

Dave Jones