A HUGE “well done” to those members of the Kent Young Ringers’ Team who represented Kent in the National Youth Contest 2018 in London on Sat July 7th.
The day started with us all arriving into London by car, train or DLR via Lewisham, Greenwich, Victoria discovering en route that our heat was at Christ Church, Cubitt Town on the Isle of Dogs. (The adults had had to know in advance where to bring their charges!) Breakfast by the Thames was accompanied by the first Handbell ringing of the day.
Then our team went up to the small and very warm tower to “perform” their test piece. They rang Plain Hunt x7 well, coming 3rd of 7 teams in their heat being awarded a grade (B). The judges commented that this was a confident piece of ringing, at a good speed for these bells. This is the 3rd time Kent has entered the RWNYC and the highest grade we have achieved so far. (The teams placed 1st & 2nd in our heat went on to take part in the final and were the overall Call Change[Sussex] and Method[Oxford] winners of the 2018 contest).
It was a great (VERY HOT) day overall, with the experience of ringing on 12 at St Michael Cornhill, Southwark Cathedral, St Mary-le-Bow and on the 8 at Aldgate, where quite a bit of “footie”-watching went on as well!
Further handbell ringing went on during the DLR journey to Bank, walking to and from Bow and Aldgate and across London Bridge! Our team also participated in the handbell workshops at Bow
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Kent Young Ringers also had the experience of being involved with the training of a Blue Peter presenter to ring: 6 of the team rang on Sunday 1st July with some Sussex young ringers at St Magnus where Lindsey was learning , and our two reserves rang in a band with her at St James Garlickhythe on Saturday! The same team of ringers rang 3 times, once with Lindsey ringing; the judges had to guess in which of the three teams she was ringing. The programme is due to be shown end August/beginning September…. keep an eye on the KYR facebook page and here on the KCACR website.