INTERVIEW
By the Dart INTERVIEW
JOHN DIETZ
BELL RINGER Interview by Kate Cotton
John Dietz has lived here all his life. John has been bellringing at the
S
Stoke Fleming church for 52 years. The 64-year-old has also travelled
and rung bells in hundreds of towns and cities around the country. He has entered competitions as a bellringer for St Peter’s and the Buckland-in- the-Moor teams. He said: “The most memorable
was ringing at Liverpool Anglican Cathedral – it has the heaviest ringing peal in the world. There are 12 bells and the largest, the tenor, is just over four tons in weight.” St Peter’s has six bells, with the
heaviest weighing over twelve hundredweight. John is captain of Stoke Fleming
bell ringers – a team of nine including John, his wife Janet, and son Robert. The team, who all live in the village,
practise one evening a week and ring for services on Sunday mornings. The most recent members joined
four years ago when they moved to the village from Hampshire. John started bell ringing at the age of 13, following in his parent’s footsteps. He said: “Bell ringing very often
runs in families. It takes a long time to learn – about three years to become reasonably proficient. “People tend to stick with it unless they get health problems or move away.”
tanding on the roof of St Peter’s Church tower, looking out to sea, it is easy to understand why
I can personally attest that you
have to be physically fit to be a bell ringer – those ropes are harder to pull than they look.
“You need some physical strength and
good coordination to pull the ropes, but technique and skill are also very important.”
John added: “You need some
physical strength and good coordination to pull the ropes, but technique and skill are also very important.”
“but you don’t just have to be fit
to ring the bells; you also have to be able to climb the steps.’
There are 101 steps up to the
tower roof – which John used to run up until about 10 years ago. The ringing chamber is a third of
the way up, and the bellropes are about 50 feet long, with the clock chamber sitting in between. St Peter’s Church dates back to the century. A major restoration took
12th
place in 1871. With the help of the Friends of St
Peter’s, funds are now being raised to restore the bells, including a new
St Peters Church, Stoke Flemming. Photo © Phillip Halling 69
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