Pull the other one!  | Daily Mail Online

We all have a nugget of information about ourselves that surprises people. Mine has served me well for the past 15 years; I’ve dined out on it and even secured dates thanks to it.

It came up most recently when news broke that 8,000 bell ringers had to be found to peal every bell in Britain for King Charles’s coronation. ‘How hard can it be?’ a friend sniffed.

It’s very hard, actually.

That’s right: my name is Steph and I am a (partially) trained bell ringer.

I have another royal – Prince Philip – to thank for my introduction to the world of campanology. Aged 15 and keen to gain my bronze Duke of Edinburgh’s Award, I had to commit to learning a new skill.

Bell ringing is not the obvious choice for a teenager but growing up in rural Bedfordshire, my friend Alex and I weren’t spoilt for choice. The location for said skill-learning needed to be within walking distance of Alex’s house (where we’d hang out after school) – and that turned out to be St Owen’s Church in the village of Bromham.

Notable for our flamboyant personal style, to say we didn’t exactly look the part is an understatement. Alex sported a bleached blonde fauxhawk while I was deep into my bright drainpipes, winged eyeliner and studded belts phase.

The first time we met our mentor, ‘Eyebrows’, we got a shock. Obviously, that wasn’t his real name but the moniker we gave him. The Tower Captain was very stern and very serious, with extremely bushy eyebrows. I’d go as far as to say ‘plaitable’.

The pair of us were expecting The Hunchback of Notre-Dame-style scenery – ancient bells, exposed beams, doves fluttering around – so it was a bit of a disappointment when we entered a space that looked like our school staff room: beige carpet, noticeboards and the smell of soup in the air. The only unusual thing was a lot of ropes with colourful striped grips hanging from the ceiling.

Eyebrows wouldn’t let us touch the ropes. Not yet, not before he’d given us the ‘danger talk’! Yes, bell ringing is perilous. He recounted tales of broken bones, torn fingernails, extracted teeth – even death. He must have thought this was what we wanted to hear – to prove that bell ringing was cool. We were terrified.

Eyebrows changed tack and called the other ringers together to perform some ’rounds’ for us. What he lacked in rapport with teens he made up for in passion for his bells. The sound was angelic and hypnotic, being so close that we could almost feel the chimes as they rang.

Where it fell apart was with the terminology: two teenagers with a juvenile sense of humour should never be let loose on equipment that involves a middle-aged man yelling ‘tail stroke’, ‘back stroke’, ‘hand stroke’ and, of course, ‘bell’. It was too innuendo-laden.

When Alex and I got really silly, Eyebrows would bellow ‘Stand’ (bring the bell safely to rest). One time, I lost track of my place (where my bell sat in the round) and which stroke I was on, causing me to grapple at my rope in a panic.

I pulled at the wrong time and the bell snatched the rope from my hands, sending it darting around the room like a hosepipe in a cartoon, hitting the face of a boy who had joined us for the session. I look back and wonder if I became one of the cautionary tales in Eyebrows’s danger talk.

However, there were moments when we genuinely gave it everything we had. We wanted to be a part of a smooth-flowing and long-lasting round, but, sadly, an hour a week while we did our bronze award wasn’t enough.

There’s so much to think about, from how hard to pull, when to release, all the while imagining the position of a bell you can’t see. Add to that the fear of accidental hanging and we were never going to be more than novices.

But I’m so grateful for those bizarre weeks with Alex and Eyebrows ‒ a memory of two teenagers in the throes of self-expression, giving up their Tuesday evenings to hang out with a group of churchgoers. When I hear church bells ring, it’s with fondness and appreciation.

And when people wonder why it’s been tough to train enough ringers for the coronation – I can tell them exactly why.