The Fifth Bell ( VILLAGE TALES EP. 32 )

Our bellringers have at last acquired a fifth bell, but not everyone is happy about it. 

Some think there is a problem, as the sound fades away there’s another sound that accompanies it, 

one that sounds like a scream. 

Our village church, like many others, is not as popular as it once was nevertheless the bellringers keep their hands in. Tuesday is when they practice before retiring to the Drum for yet more arm lifting. Campanology is a mystery to me though names like ‘triple bob major’ and ‘grandsire doubles’ should be found a place in the English language where they can be used more often. 

It was an early Tuesday evening when I called in to see Dave the landlord regarding an equestrian print, when I noticed the bellringers settled around the table in the window. I could see there was an air of discomfort amongst what is usually a very jovial group. It was after Martin Jeffors described the group of bellringers one Sunday as a ‘band’, that I suggested it might be so because they stand around in a circle, here they were again but sitting. I like to think it’s the origin of ‘band’ when applied to any group of musicians. As a chronicler of village tales, etymology is a compulsive sideline.

I would not admit to being nosey, but I am curious. Rather than leaving after finishing our business, I bought a pint, picked up a paper from the rack, and found a seat within earshot of the silence which had descended upon the bellringers, and waited for it to break.

‘Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now,’ was how Martin did it. It was his uncle, Tom Jeffers who had the village shop before it was bought by the Blythe estate. Martin is the conductor and may well have started bellringing with his uncle Tom. 

‘Well, it sounds fine to me,’ was the reply that eventually surfaced after Donald Spears had downed most of his pint and wiped the froth of his moustache.

Pearl Cummings replied that she didn’t think it was right no matter what Don said, and then added she was surprised he could hear anything under all that hair and beard.

Don poked his tongue at her and smiled and it wasn’t for the first time I’d noticed their playfulness, and Pearl’s bashful reddening. Groups of villagers that meet regularly can lead to some straying from the straight and narrow. The village cycle club was a case in point having to be disbanded after several affairs threatened to partition the village entirely. 

The conversation seemed to focus on ‘it’. ‘It’ was fine, or ‘it’ wasn’t. When Martin explained that ‘it’ had been tuned precisely, and ‘it’ had been checked for any cracks or imperfections, I could only guess they were referring to a bell.

After what some might call a pregnant pause the group was delivered of a suggestion by Martin that they should ‘grow to like the bell’. They had looked forward to the acquisition of their fifth bell and perhaps it was just that addition that had altered the acoustics and given the perception of it not sounding as pure as some might think. 

‘Maybe it's all in the mind,’ he added as the group broke up with Pearl and Donald Spears exiting together, and not leaving un-noticed.

Martin remained in a thoughtful mood and as an intro, I wondered whether the band was due any forthcoming events.

‘A wedding,’ was his curt reply so I thought that was that, but silence can work wonders if someone wants share something and doesn’t want the opportunity to pass un-grasped.

‘It’s our new bell, our fifth,’ he began.

‘There’s a problem?’ I nudged.

‘I don’t know, one or two of us think there is.’

Martin went on to explain that as a musician he could tune an instrument electronically to perfection, but I few minor adjustment were necessary before it sounded right to the ear. Martin thought there was nothing wrong with the bell, but it was the acoustics within the tower, or something resonating that gave the effect of another ‘voice’ within the ringing of the bell as the sound faded.

The following week Rachael accompanied me to listen to the bell ringers practice. Rachael as you know is our local historian, but she also writes for various national papers, very useful if you need to access information. She is also an accomplished musician and plays fiddle for a local folk group. I thought her opinion of the fifth bell would be useful, though we would not mention that was the real reason we were there.

To the casual listener, of which I am one, the bell sounded no different to any other in its character and tone but I noticed Rachael gave a slight frown as the sound died away.

‘It’s as it fades,’ she whispered, ‘it’s as if there’s another sound accompanying it.’

The more Rachael listened the more certain she was that there was what she described as a feint, high pitched echo as the ringing died away.

Afterwards in the pub we thanked the ringers for allowing us to attend their practice but mentioned nothing about the bell. Martin once again was left to himself and joined us at the bar. He had guessed the reason for our attendance,

‘Well?’ Was all he said.

I shook my head and gave that expression that I hadn’t noticed anything. Racheal played the same card but wondered what it was that Martin thought was the problem. He then took us into his confidence. Prior to obtaining the bell from a disused church in Lincolnshire he had been made aware that some ringers in its past had found it ‘disturbing’. It had been electronically examined for cracks and imperfections, but nothing had been found to prevent the purchase after funding had been raised for it and its installation.

The view was that any abnormality in the sound of the bell has to be put down to the acoustics of where it was installed and any discomfort experienced may be due a low level resonance that can be found in buildings and sometimes creates a feeling of sickness. An installation in a different tower with different acoustics and construction was unlikely to have the same effect. However in its new home some had noticed the same problem.

‘Tolled with other bells it’s not noticeable,’ Martin pointed out, ‘it’s when it’s on it’s own and as it faded there was what Pearl describes as a sort of ‘distant chilling echo’,but she tends to the dramatic.’

I could see Rachael was preoccupied as she walked back to her cottage, I felt the same. It’s a puzzle that might not even exist other than in the minds of those that think it does. I suspected Racheal wouldn’t be happy until she’d wrung out of it every detail she could, so it was no surprise when a week later Rachael suggested a drink. When I found her in the corner of the Drum, she had plenty of notes besides her drink and mine. 

She started by telling me about the closing of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London during 2017 after nearly 450 years. It caused many artefacts to be donated to the Science and other museums. There were drawings, photographs, day books and business records. Of interest to social historians were the accident reports. They were scant and only the most serious of accidents were reported. One that Rachael had noted concerned a fatality, in itself not unusual for the period, but this was different. It concerned the death a young orphan apprentice, Thomas Platt, probably no more than nine or ten years of age. The report mentioned molten bronze being transferred in an open cauldron toward a mould, when three other workers were also injured. Production had to be halted, a rare occurrence and indicated an extraordinary event. Rachael was unable to find anything more about Thomas Platt, neither funeral nor burial. Production began again three days after the accident and the first bell cast was the last for a set destined for a church at Holdford near Kings Lynn, which as Rachael pointed out, was in Lincolnshire. It didn’t take much to find out that was the origin of our village’s fifth bell.

Racheal and I decided we would keep our findings to ourselves. As for what some people can hear, we can’t say that it’s a resonance in the tower, the acoustics, or a fault in the bell itself which adds a sound like a distant chilling echo as the ringing fades to silence. Neither can we say it is not the scream of an orphan child whose ghost resides within the bell, but the more you hear it, the more it sounds like it.

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Written and read by Barkley Johnson.