The Bells of York Minster

I'm not an Anglican, nor indeed a church attender these days, but there seems something wrong here.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...rk-minster-wrong-sack-us-silence-church-bells

 

Ooh it's got the locals restless. That and Redders being favourite for the City job

 

The City Job?

Haven't they got a very good and well respected manager?

 

He's been sacked and then appointed caretaker manager! What's the deal with Mcnamara, he seems to be hated

 

Every club he has been at he has taken them to the cleaners. Celtic, Aberdeen, Dunfermline, Partick, United. Just watch. He will make sure he walks away with a pocket full of dough or he will possibly sue for unfair dismissal.
Money is his god. Only last week he was caught fare dodging on the York Edinburgh train. The man is a maggot.

 

I am a bell ringer, have been since 1974, but your post has only just brought this to my attention. I hadn't heard about this problem at York until now.
Yes, it is dangerous but we all grew up in an age where danger was allowed and you took responsibility for your own actions. I have rung a few times at York Minster and it is no more hazardous than the little three and four bell towers I frequented, just a bit bigger and more nerve wracking.
I've also rung at St Paul's cathedral and Westminster Abbey.
We were a happy band of ringers in our time based at Darfield and I rang at Barnsley parish church where I became tower captain for a few years as well as being ringing master for the Barnsley and district society. We were not professionals, merely did it for a hobby and the love of it.
If all this hoohar at York is down to "health and safety" then we as a country in a right fine mess. I can see the adverts in my mind's eye.... "if you've been injured whilst bell ringing then contact so-and-so injury lawyers...."
By the way..... something you won't know...... my good friend Ian MacMillan used to be a ringer too. We learned together at Wath and Darfield.

 

York are a shambles at the moment. Funnily enough their downturn coincided with the start of our upturn when we beat them in the JPT on Hammill's debut

 

This is a genuine question, simply because I don't know the answer, but am interested to know - what are the dangers of bell ringing? If I were to compile a list of dangerous hobbies and interests, bell ringing wouldn't have been on it, but that may just be me being uninformed. Thanks

 

Not only York mate. Dundee United are a shambles ATM due to both his incompetence as a manager and our Chairman's greed. Between them they sold our club down the river.

 

Oh dear, where do I begin?
You hear the old jokes about getting pulled up by the rope into the bells and though not strictly true it is possible to get tangled up in the bell rope and get hoisted upwards... the only obstacle in the way being the floor above you !
Bells are VERY heavy, several hundredweights to a few tons each, so the rotation of a swinging bell is sufficient to lift you off your feet, quite literally.
You do have to learn properly how to handle a bell and bell rope and this takes time, depending on your ability and the ability of the person teaching you.
That aside, you are dealing with very old places, church towers, many hundreds of years old and definitely not geared towards health and safety ! Bell chambers are the ultimate in danger, heavy bells, the awkward and dangerous frames they hang in, they are dark even when well lit, and to cap it all they can be SPOOKY places.
So not only could you get tangled in the rope, you could be hung, fall off the bell frame and break bones, fall down the spiral steps that access the ringing rooms half way up the towers. That's enough for starters.
Apart from that if you overcome these niceties then bell ringing is great. A good workout physically and mentally.

 

If one of you guys passed away would that make them a dead ringer ?

 

So Mcnamara has now gone from sacked manager, to caretaker manager, to Chief Exec in six days!

 

I like what you did there.

 

Local knowledge innit

 

They really need a Knave to get them out of the mire.

Sorry, that was awful.

 

It's opposite to driving a car.
It could be dangerous if you were dry ringing

 

Good knowledge though

 

I'd be careful if I were him Ian.
I think it's still legal to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow within the city walls at York

 

Ark, this is unbelievable. How does the useless pr1ck do it?

Can York City plummet any further down the leagues? I'm sure JM will give it a go.

 

They were ringing last Sunday when I whizzed passed them like a white Mo Farah.