News

Over the last few days, different teams of six ringers, ringing twelve bells have provided a feeling of Christmas at several venues, playing Christmas Carols and Christmas songs. The venues have included St Georges Hospital in Stafford. The Bulls Head in Alton, Brookfields Nursing Home in Derby, Hilderstone Hall Care Home, Denstone Farm Shop and Chatsworth. It is great to visit places at Christmas as they are all decorated with lights, baubles, imitation bells and of course, the centre piece of all decorations, the obligatory Christmas Tree. It is very rewarding playing at these venues to see so many happy smiling faces and hearing people singing along to the Carols. Wendy our Leader, works very hard getting teams of six together at such a busy time of the year for everyone. At all the events Wendy conducts and on some occasions plays as well. At the time of writing a 12bell team have one more concert before the end of 2022 with a return visit to Chatsworth on 30th December.  Merry Christmas to everyone and a Happy New Year.

Christmas concert

Alton Village Hall

Saturday 3 December 2022

After two early Christmas concerts and several 12 bell appearances, our third and final full team concert of the season was upon us – our annual fundraiser at Alton Village Hall for the Donna Louise Hospice for Children & Young People (now part of the Douglas Macmillan (Dougie Mac) hospice).

In 2021, because of Covid, we restricted our audience numbers to family and friends and changed our traditional pie-and-pea supper to bring-your-own food and drink, with donations instead of a fixed ticket price. There were also no guest musicians. This worked very well, taking the pressure off our organisation and preparation, and we still raised a goodly sum. We really liked this arrangement which made it a more social evening and decided that this year we would do the same but encouraging a bigger audience, and they came!

For the first half of the concert, we rang a range of non-Christmas music, some especially written for handbells and including a Morris dance piece (Shepherd’s Hey) played using only mallets with jingle bells accompaniment, and the wonderful Highland Cathedral, which we all love and performed with gusto! Wendy and Alan then rang two four-in-hand (two bells in each hand) pieces to take us up to the interval.

During the break we were able to join our guests at their tables and enjoy some festive fare; then there was a whisky roll, and the very popular raffle was drawn.

Fully replenished, everyone started off the second half with a rousing singalong of The Twelve Days of Christmas led by Peter Walker on his accordion, and then a return to bells and Christmas music, starting with an arrangement of the (Native American/French Canadian) Huron Carol called ‘Twas in the Moon of Wintertime (with percussion accompaniment by Sarah) and finishing with Frosty the Snowman. There was rapturous applause from the audience and calls for an encore, which we hadn’t expected, so we rang Frosty again. Next year perhaps we’ll be prepared!

Lindsay Trevarthen

Alton Handbell Ringers

Alton Handbell Ringers performed our concert of the Christmas season on Tuesday 22^nd November 2022 at 2.30pm.

We were welcomed at Doveridge village hall by the Doveridge seniors group, who seemed to enjoy our ringing.

We performed a mix of pieces of varying complexity including some well-rehearsed melodies, some newer tunes and of course some Christmas pieces, ending with Frosty the Snowman.

There were refreshments after the performance and some of the audience showed an interest in the bells and other equipment.

Lou

Thursday 10th November 2022

On Thursday November 10^th we visited Denstone Farm Shop for the first of our Christmas visits this year. What a lovely evening.

The shop was decorated ready for the Christmas season, and had obviously attracted many customers. We played for two sessions in the restaurant, with everyone obviously enjoying all of the traditional tunes and carols. Some of the small children had great fun playing the sleigh bells as accompaniment to “Jingle Bells”

We enjoyed delicious refreshments (Turkey baps and mulled wine) during the interval, and were thanked enthusiastically by the owners, staff and customers as we left.

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

Lynne Harris