A New Year

Four years ago on New Years Eve, Owen I and were invited to watch the bell-ringers of Wimborne Minster in Dorset as they rung in the New Year.

The Minster, a Norman jewel, dates mostly to the 12th century. Wimborne is a small town and half an hour before midnight when we entered the narrow tower, it was not hopping. We climbed a narrow sturdy wood stair 195 feet to a platform at the top. There, the assembled bell ringers, ranging in age from 7 to their 70s, stood in a circle, each at a rope threaded through a hole in the ceiling above. They tuned into the BBC. When it was midnight, GMT, they started to pull. I always imagined a mad free-for-all of exuberant tugging, but “change” ringing requires close attention, fast work, and precision pulling to swing the bell nearly upside down at the right point in the sequence. Through their attention we hear ordered ripples of sound rolling down in waves.

The belfry was cold; few people climbed there and it wasn’t worth heating. I was touched to see that the wall was painted, “Ring Out The Old, Ring In The New. Ring Out The False, Ring In The True.” Who but the bellringers would see it?

When the ringing started, I was terrified; the whole tower shook. Fearing a collapse of the floor, I curled myself in a window seat, a notch in the thick walls. During a break, I asked an elderly ringer about the shaking. With typical English disrespect for risk, he chortled: “If it didn’t shake, the whole tower would fall.” I still can’t decide if this comforted me or not.

It was January 1, 2004. We were living under a stolen presidency that had created a disastrous war. I didn’t support any candidate in particular. (This was before Howard Dean’s Scream in Iowa.) I just wanted a new direction. The assembled bellringers, at the beginning and end of their lives seemed to promise it. The ancient tower shook with the promise of a New Year. The ringing was an old tradition, established enough to cause someone to paint the walls, but what we thought about was the New Year.

I couldn't sort out the hope and the terror. Together they made exilharation. Four years later with my feet on the American ground, it's hard to remember how it felt.