The tour began. This, for one thing, we can be sure of; there is little else that we can be sure of, mainly due to alcohol and the passage of time, but of that we can definitely be sure that, the tour began.
How it began varied from person to person. Personally, for Andy Barnes and myself it began far away in Lincolnshire. I have always thought that it is important to arrive early, so, having realised that I needed to get to the pub in Shincliff, where we were to be based, by 19:00 I promptly departed from home at 7:00, giving a full 12 hours to get there; well you never can be too sure where that A1 is concerned!
It was not total madness, but by whether by design or not we found ourselves at High Force, the largest waterfall in Great Britain, and that's not saying a lot! For the purposes of completeness I have included a snapshot of the Force.
Having wasted as much time as we possibly could we decided to find the pub; this proved a lot easier than our already aborted attempt to find the hall. We had decided to follow a sign proclaiming, 'To The Hall'. Unfortunately the 'Hall' in question appeared to be somewhat to large and grandiose for our requirements, so apologising to the Bishop of Durham we went to find a pub instead.
After the first couple of pints we rang round to find out where some people were. Malcolm said that he was coming to a roundabout, then announced that he had been here once already, then following some colourful language announced that he was on the wrong road, going the wrong way, had been driving for four hours and was Soon Malcolm did arrive, and so did Martyn, who had left Manchester some two hours after Malcolm! Then Percy arrived, and was so busy waving at us that he nearly demolished a quantity of furniture outside the pub. I would not have minded had we not been sitting there at the time. Through the evening more of the usual suspects appeared, although a few did not.
The poorer amongst us, and the cheapskates, decided that the pub we were in was a little too expensive for food, so we made an excursion into Durham, complete with its very own Congestion Charging zone; a little over the top I thought.
We soon found a student type pub, but with a limited supply of real ale, in the city centre and had our dinner, before returning to the village pub to join the others.
Unfortunately the pub in the village happened to serve its beer in glasses with logos on. This, whilst not in its self being unfortunate, meant that one or two of the society there present were inclined to allow these to slip into their pockets. To my ken I believe that at least 15 glasses went missing. Still at least all present were feeling happy Well, nearly happy!
Eventually we went in search of our hall and found it well equipped and suiting to our needs. However a loud crash, followed by an expletive, announced the fact that Mr Barnes had dropped a pile of glasses from the pub. He was duly presented with a dustpan and brush and told to remove the shards of glass from the road.
The following morning dawned bright and nearly sunny, and the first few towers passed withnot any incident worth reporting. Cakes did appear at one of the towers, from Karen and Poppy, and these were soon devoured.
At the lunch time pub several more glasses vanished, presumably to replace some of those which had perished the previous night. Kevin was busy selling Comic Relief Joke Books; this proved disastrous as Ross then remembered many of the jokes he had learnt in anticipation of the tour. The pub must have been good as several persons arrived a little late at the next pub. Guess who they might have been? The afternoon saw us ringing at Durham Cathedral; probably a mistake for the first tower after lunch but we just about got away with, even if Percy and Rhyan did struggle to ring the ninth up right! Diane had a little trouble with the treble as it seemed to keep on mysteriously dropping; not so much of a mystery to the rest of us as we could see Malcolm on the balcony some 20 feet above giving the treble a helping hand! What larks!! After ringing we went up to the roof to have a look around; as this photograph testifies it was a little breezy up there.
Having rung minds turned to dinner and a pint. The Good Book suggested a place called The Cathedrals. Unsure as to where this might be I tackled a policeman. Once he had picked himself up he said that he had never heard of such a place. So we continued to search and eventually found it, overlooking the police station; would not have minded so much but it had a huge sign, clearly visible from the police station, which stated the name of the place. It gives you a lot of confidence of our boys and girls in blue.
Having found it we decided that we did not like the pub, so went to the one over the road instead. Here we caused our usual disarray but displacing the locals and rearranging the furniture to suit our needs. To add insult to injury we soon formed that traditional large circle that ringers in pubs are apt to cause. After dinner we transferred to another pub, The Victoria, where we spent the remainder of the night before the long walk home. I think even the camera was feeling the worse for wear!
The final photo of the day finds Percy captivated with the sight of Rhyan's feet.
Saturday dawned and the group headed for Sunderland. The first tower was the enjoyable 10 at Roker; this was followed by the interesting experience that is Holy Trinity in Sunderland Docks. Following warning that if we did not watch the cars someone would be away with them Karen was left on guard! I was a little weary and watched out of the windows whilst we rang there; this was due to the comments of the tower captain at Roker when I mentioned that we were ringing at Holy Trinity. These were, 'Last time I rang there we lost a quarter peals because some of the kids started shooting at us.
So to lunch. The pub we found was different to say the least. For a start there were a number of sickles and other sharp pointing objects attached, very loosely to my eye, to the ceiling. Other roof furniture included several bicycles and a tandem, and about 250 chamber pots; all of which to my knowledge were still there when we left. Food on the menu included Wild Boar, Kangaroo, Crocodile and Ostrich; I had the bangers and mash!
The afternoon ringing was fairly uneventful except for the open staircase at Easington.
Back at the hall, and a dinner was prepared by the catering officers to follow the meeting. Once over the assemble party made for the Victoria Inn in Durham where the remainder of the evening was passed in the Sitting Room. One person, who shall remain nameless, insisted on pressing the bell buttons on the wall until, that is, a barmaid came and told him to shut up!
On the return the three miles to the hall seemed much less.
The Sunday morning was an early start as we had to clear the hall ahead of the Palm Sunday procession which was starting from there; so for a change everyone made Sunday ringing. Some people left after this, whilst the others went to ring at two towers in Durham itself.
The few of us remaining then went to a coffee shop where we spent £7.20 each on a coffee and a toasted teacake. Malcolm felt that he was shrinking at this point, and I include a final photograph as evidence.
Many thanks are due to all those who organised and ran the tour, and my apologies are sought for the late arrival of this report, it now being nearly ten months later.
- James P Mort
Right first time!
