HEALTH & BEAUTY Ding dong By Rowena Kitchen I
love the sound of bells. the joyful peals coming from a church announcing a wedding or other ceremonial occasion sound fabulous floating on the air around the village letting local people know something is happening. It makes me very sad to hear about villages where the bells have been banned due to health and safety issues. Where is the joy in that? A bell being rung doesn’t only happen on land it also happens at sea! signalling, keeping time or warning other vessels are traditional uses for bells on ships. Plenty of bells would have been rung around Dartmouth over the centuries to warn ships of danger. Bells tinkling above the shop door would let a shopkeeper know a customer was entering – back in the days when people lived behind or ‘over’ the shop. Now we rarely hear that iconic sound unless we are watching a period drama on the TV. A bell on the reception desk at a hotel summons the clerk to book you in. A bell is rung to open the stock market each day on Wall Street. Bells carry a weight that a buzzer lacks. Bells are pretty important around Christmas time too.
I wonder if the bells on the harnesses of the reindeer are there to act as a warning to other sky born creatures. After all, Santa wants to slip down the chimney, eat the cookies, drink the milk and slip away again without waking the children up, so why the jingling bells? Those delightful bells that can be heard along with the light thud of the sleigh settling on the roof are the happy hopeful noise a child longs to hear which is why they stay awake so late on Christmas Eve … Every film made about Christmas time has an undercurrent of bells running through the soundtrack for added joy and poignancy.
Carols often have a reference to bells. Singing ‘Ding Dong’ is just a way of verbalising bells that are announcing something wonderful. In this case that the sky is full of angels singing and that is officially wonderful! All the traditional Christmas songs have bells in
present wrapping is
drying to your hands
the background, from the most sophisticated to the schmaltziest. Even hardened rock stars get sentimental at Christmas and throw in a few peals to soften their hard core philosophies. It’s a reminder that excitement is round the corner. But I can’t help but wonder if we need a reminder of what Christmas is really about? I am willing to bet that the majority of people turning up for Midnight Mass only go to church at that time of year and then under the influence of too much mulled wine. I hope I am wrong and would be delighted to lose the bet. Am I right in thinking some people
celebrate this festive period without having the slightest religious thought? The Christmas Story is a fantastic one and
must not be forgotten in the rush to buy presents and overindulge in a way that our ancestors would find scandalous. Yes, it’s true The Three Wise men brought presents to the stable, but they were symbols and portents of what was to come. Gold, of course, was the symbol for Kingship on earth and was a traditional gift for royalty. Frankincense was a fragrant gum that was burnt as an offering to God so this acknowledged they recognised him as the son of God. Did you know that Myrrh is scented oil used to anoint dead bodies? This was to show that the journey Jesus had ahead of him was a foregone conclusion, or so it is said … The three kings did not come laden with pointless bits of rubbish that would be discarded before lunch. I can hear you thinking how has this got anything to do with health and beauty? How on earth will she get to the part where she is going to bang on about not eating too much (again) and counting glasses of champagne by keeping a tally on our arms with lip liner?
Illustration by Lisa Wyman
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