When I’m asked about my hobbies, I answer with all the normal things – meeting friends, maybe going for a walk or shopping – but also that I am a bellringer. “Where do you do that?” is a common response. And until this week, I was proud to answer: York Minster.
On Tuesday, I was one of the 30 members of the York Minster Society of Change Ringers who were told that our volunteer agreements had been terminated, and that ringing at the minster had been suspended with immediate effect.
To give some context, York Minster isn’t just any tower, and it isn’t easy for our happy and vibrant band to just go elsewhere. York Minster is widely considered to have one of the finest rings of bells in the world, and its team of ringers are well known across the country for the high standard of our Sunday service ringing. Our ringing peal is the fourth heaviest in the country, with the biggest bell weighing in at three tonnes. They require a great deal of skill to ring and are not suitable for new learners, with many of us honing our craft elsewhere before joining the minster band. So why have the dean and chapter suddenly decided to dismiss us? What’s the problem?
Is it that our ringing is not good enough? No, we were told by Canon Peter Moger, the minster’s precentor, that the minster knows our ringing is world class. Was there a problem with our ringing master’s leadership? No, this was not the case.
At Tuesday’s meeting, we were told that the minster had commissioned an external report on ringing which had identified health and safety risks. As a result of this – and without any warning – the decision was taken that ringing must stop immediately. This was a complete surprise as none of the ringers had been involved in any report, nor were we aware that it was being carried out. Most frustratingly, the minster will not share this report with us or tell us what the supposed risks were.
Ringing at the minster is carried out in much the same way as it is throughout the country. We have a particularly experienced band with years of specialist knowledge. Furthermore, the minster is a showcase tower, and maintained to a very high standard. If there was such a great risk, would it not have been preferable for the dean and chapter to work with us to resolve these issues?
The letter we received inviting us to Tuesday’s meeting was dated Thursday 6 October, and so evidently these risks had already been identified; however ringing was still allowed to continue as normal on Sunday 9 October. This raises the question as to why the dean and chapter would have knowingly put us at risk on Sunday. Are health and safety concerns being used as an excuse to get rid of the ringers? And if so, why?
While we are volunteers, we are not amateurs, nor are we stuck in the past. Our highly skilled band ranges in age from 11 to 70+, and earlier this year a quarter-peal was rung by 12 members of the band under the age of 30. Our committee is made up of professionals (our treasurer is a chartered accountant, and our secretary a professional administrator). Over the past year we have won several trophies for the quality of our ringing, including the White Rose 12-bell tournament and the Sunday Service Competition for ringing teams across Yorkshire. We regularly travel together to visit other bell towers, and are planning a tour in the US and Canada in 2017. It is a tragedy that this shining example of how a ringing team should be run is now being destroyed by the actions of our own dean and chapter.
We feel that our dean, the Very Rev Vivienne Faull, has demonstrated time and again a wilful lack of understanding of bellringing at the minster. Since her arrival in York in 2012, we have invited her to meet us on several occasions, but she has repeatedly not attended. We are used to having a good relationship with dean and chapter, and in the past they have joined us for dinners and social events.
But this is a dean who, to our knowledge, has never ascended the bell tower or seen us ring, yet was willing to speak to the press on Thursday about the risks of operating in “far-flung parts of the minster” and “working at height”. As any of the ringers could have told her, no part of our ringing involves working at height: our ringing chamber is walled in on all sides and reached by a well-maintained staircase, just like the majority of bell towers across the UK.
The ringing team would welcome the opportunity to work with the dean and chapter to resolve this sorry situation, and are happy to work collaboratively towards change, as long as this is carried out in a reasonable manner and with consultation. Hopefully the people of York will hear the glorious minster bells ring out again soon, and we’re optimistic this can happen. We have been overwhelmed by the support from across the world since our sacking. A petition calling for our reinstatement has so far received more than 5,000 signatures – not bad for a supposedly quaint English tradition.
