12 - Changes

I s’pose if she’d bin as ugly as sin, things might a worked out different, like, but she was a crackin’ young looker so that set wives ’n’ girlfriends agin her day one. From ’Ampshire I believe, a ‘creative’ like, workin’ o’er Plymouth way. TV, I think.

Any road, like to blend in wi’ the locals she up an’ joined the Enedoc ringers and like most towers these days they ’ad a job to get a full complement o’ bells, so they was most accommodatin’ of ’er.

Old ’Arry were the cap’n on’m though well past ’is sell-by date as you might say, and weren’t long before she stood agin ’im in the AGM and won ’ands down. Course, if’n you’d asked who ev’ryone ’ad voted for, they’d all a said ’Arry and so there wuz a few red faces down The Stanner’s that night, especially ’Arry’s ; ’n’ ’e ain’t bin back since.

Well afore long, she started to make changes, if you see what I mean. If’n you don’ know much about ringin’, there’s summat called the ’andstroke and summat called the backstroke, an’ round ’ere we gen’rally don’ leave a gap between ’m so they’d go one-two-three-four-five-six-one-two-three-four-five-six-one-two- an’ so on like clockwork, which is called “closed ’andstroke”. Mos’n elsewhere they d’ring wi’ a gap after the backstroke like one-two-three-four-five-six-one-two-three-four-five-six – gap – one-two an’ zo on, which is call’d “open ’andstroke”.

Well now Enedoc’s a bin winnin’ striking competitions ’ereabouts for years, but soon as she ’ad ’em ringin’ vurren-like, they adjudicators took agin um ’n’ docked points ’til Enedoc’s started comin’ last all uz time. But that were just a start ’n it.

She got to learnin’ ’em “Doubles” which is a fancy way o’ swapping bells around following patterns that look like some o’ they financial graphs in posh papers, whereas ’Arry ’ad alluz called the changes out loud, see, like “four-to-one-two-lead” and so on.

There was rumours; course there was. People ’ad ’er shacking’ up with Pete Willins, a gangly lad who’d seemingly a run a mile if’n she’d a started up’n ’im. Then with Gaz Trelown, who probably started that rumour ’isself but ain’t as well liked o’ the ladies as ’e dreams o’ bein’. ’E probably started the other rumour, too, which wuz that she’da like the new lady vicar but that was just sourness. Whatever ’er ways ’an’ whatever ’er fancies, at least she warn’t a weekender like some’n’em volk.

Last I ’eard she was out o’ work when ’er comp’ny went tits up in that there recession, ’n’ she ’ad ter look elsewhere for a job. Course there’s nothin’ ’ere for smart young folk like ’er, an’ I see as ’er cottage is out to let again. But she done gone ’n’ left ’er mark, fer I ’ear that the Enedoc ringers a got up a minibus ter go ’n’ try some o’ they church bells up country and ter ’ave a pop at competitions where they ain’t such sticklers fer th’old ways like ’round ’ere. That were young Pete Willins idea, ’im bein’ the new cap’n ’n’ all, and ’e’s like a new feller, confident in ’is ways: why, ’e’s a changed man.