Saturday 22nd March

We were all very pleased to welcome handbell teams from the North West, North East, South West, East Midlands and West Midlands regions of HRGB to our rally in Alton Village Hall. With participants ranging in age from 11 to 85, this rally was a wonderful celebration of music and friendship.

Tea and biscuits were served to all the ringers before the start of the Rally.

The first massed ringing piece we played was conducted by Kate from the North West Region, it was called “Spring”, very appropriate for the time of year. The second mass ringing piece was the “Trumpet Hornpipe” which was conducted by Rowena from the West Midlands. We all enjoyed the malleted rhythms. The other massed ringing pieces were ‘Waltzing Matilda’ conducted by Helen from the NE Region and ‘Golden Slumbers’ conducted by Wendy.

The massed ringing was interspersed with solo pieces played by individual teams. The teams were Dronfield, Kinder, Brailsford, Areley Kings and Alton. Some of the teams were short of ringers.  Some rang 4 in hand and others shared guest ringers to make up numbers. This all added to the sense of community. We enjoyed a lovely array of music including traditional favourites like Cwm Rhonda, Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, Amazing Grace, Knees up Mother Brown, Parade of the Tin Soldiers and Highland Cathedral.

We all took our own lunches and at 3.15 pm we had tea and cake, no fear of us being hungry! Our minds were kept busy with a fun spring / summer quiz created by Ann. The raffle was drawn later and the quiz answers were revealed and called out.

It was all good fun and everyone enjoyed getting together and playing together. Many thanks to Ann for organising it.

Jean Reilly