News and Events
2011
2 O'Clock Bells ring with the Tredici Choir
With a busy fortnight of playing Christmas carols in the run up to Christmas, the highlight of the season for the 2 O'Clock bells was a chance to play in central London for The Leprosy Mission annual Carol Service.
The service was held in St Giles in the Fields church near Centrepoint at the top of Charing Cross Road. Half the team were able to arrive by car with the equipment whilst the rest travelled by train and fortified themselves with a cup of coffee in Starbucks before reaching the church.
We had been practising our part in Steve Pilkington's arrangement of the Coventry Carol for several weeks until we knew our repeated bars off by heart, and with the Tredici Choir behind us it sounded fabulous. We had a brief rehearsal and then the service began.
The acoustics in the church gave all the singing and the bell ringing a very mellow sound and we were pleased with our performance, playing a selection of Christmas carols before and after the service, and playing with the choir for the Coventry Carol.
We were delighted to have been able to take part in the service, and to have helped with the Christmas fundraising for The Leprosy Mission
2010
2 O'Clock Bells play in St Paul's Cathedral
One of our members, Rosemary, is the World Wide President of the Mothers' Union, and is frequently asked to preach in some very important places around the world. This time, the London Diocese Mothers' Union invited her to preach at the Festival Service in their diocesan Cathedral, which happens to be St Paul's Cathedral in the city of London. Rosemary was delighted to accept their invitation, and asked whether she could bring the rest of the bell team with her to play at the service. Which was how the 2 O'clock Bells came to be processing through the biggest Cathedral in the country playing a processional composed especially for the occasion by Sandra.
We arrived at the Cathedral in good time, with one contingent being given special permission to park a car right beside the Cathedral, and congregated in the crypt, and after a bit of confusion about where we were actually allowed to wait, and whether they would ever finish cleaning the ladies and let us in, we made our way into the spectacular enormous centre of the church, right beneath the dome. We listened to the choir rehearsal and then had one practice processing, and ran through our piece, before a final quick bite to eat in the crypt and the service began.
Everything went well, we processed behind the cross and ahead of the choir, playing our Celebration Processional, and kept in time with each other despite the echo, which played our notes over and over again around the dome. We took part in the service, and Rosemary preached a very good sermon along the current Mothers' Union theme of "Relationships not rules". Just before the last hymn we all took up our bells again to play "Spirit of the Living God" arranged by Douglas E Wagner. Very slowly to let all the notes bounce around the Cathedral and not run into each other, and it sounded brilliant, and we were delighted to have played in such an exalted setting.
We're sorry that Rosemary was too busy greeting Mothers' Union members to be in the pictures, but we know she was there and played with us in both pieces.
2009
Little Bells
In the summer of 2009 we had raised enough money to buy 5 more little bells for the treble ringers to play. Now we will have that top G that we always needed.
October 2008
How we got the money for our new bass chimes
We started playing the song "God forgave my Sin" which is the song that includes the words "freely, freely, you have received, freely, freely give" and soon realised that to play it properly we would need some more bass chimes to cover the lower notes. Soon after that Penny was taking part in a discussion at her House Group and the question came up "If you won £500 what would you spend it on?", without a moment's hesitation Penny said "Large chime bars!"
Three days later, through the Penny's letter box came Premium Bond cheques for £150, and Penny knew just what she should do with them. She says "it was as if Jesus was standing right there in the kitchen with me smiling and saying, "you know that £100 win you had last month and haven't spent yet...". She rang Sandra to ask if £250 would be enough and it was pretty much exactly what was needed!!
Penny says "One or two people have told me I'm generous. I don't feel it at all. that money was never mine, It was so clearly a gift from God who delights to surprise us with generosity. But it is awesome. Thanksgiving isn't really enough is it? I just want to tell everyone how amazing and loving God is!"
April 2008
We won the Whitechapel Trophy!
The 2 O'Clock Bells were delighted to win the Whitechapel Bell Foundry Trophy at the Croydon Music Festival on 30th April this year. Having been entering the Handbell class at the Croydon Music Festival since 1998, we have only won the trophy once before; in 2003 when we played "Sakura" and "When The Saints Go Marching In". (Interestingly that year it was also 30th April - perhaps there's a link!) This year we played the Fanfare from Michael Helman's "Suite for Handbells", and "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot", arranged for 2 to 3 octaves of handbells and 2 octaves of hand chimes by our own Angela Jones. This year the Wandle Ringers did not enter their full team, but two smaller teams of Wandle members took part, a four in hand trio and a 10 member team. So the competition was more balanced, and all three teams performed well.
We were also delighted to hear the junior teams in the competition, who both provided some very good music, and we look forward to hearing more from them in future years.
A New Set of Handchimes - November 2007
We're delighted now to be the proud owners of a two octave set of hand chimes, with many thanks to Ann, who has very kindly bought them for the two teams to use, in memory of her mother, Mrs Edna Seaman. We're looking forward to being able to use hand chimes with the bells in some of our Christmas music, and are practising "Silent Night" for bells and handchimes especially arranged for the 2 O'Clock Bells by Sandra Winter.
