The Bell Tolls for the City

The American Observer
November 19, 2005
by Megan Downs
Two of Washington’s well-known buildings, the Natio National Cathedral image by Megan Downs

nal Cathedral and the Old Post Office Tower have one thing in common: the Washington Ringing Society.
As in the old days, the ringers communicate with the city through the music of the bells, expressing the joy or sadness of the day. They rang the bells when the Space Shuttle Challenger went down, for president Reagan’s funeral procession and in memory of those killed in the London bombings last summer.

The National Cathedral in Washington, DC.
The ringers say their art is one of Washington’s pleasant hidden secrets.
“We are completely invisible yet we make the loudest noises and no one ever sees us,” says ringer Paula Richardson Fleming. “Isn’t that great?”
Fleming, 57, has lived in Washington her entire life. She is a short, soft-spoken woman with graying red hair. She is proud to show off the blisters and calluses covering her hands, wounds of a pastime she says she believes has become more of a calling.
Fleming and her husband, Ed Donnen, say they were inspired to join the Society after they read “The Nine Tailors” by Dorothy L. Sayers, a mystery novel that talks about an old country church and its bell ringers.
“A good book will do that to you,” said Donnen, the Society’s bell mechanic.
Fleming and Donnen are part of a group of about 40 volunteers in the Washington Ringing Society who gather in a large, circular room in the National Cathedral to ring the bells.
Ten ropes, connected to the bells a story above, dangle from the ceiling. Ringers tug the rope to ring the corresponding bell. Communicating through silent commands and nods, the ringers speak a secret language, shared by only 400 people in North America, who are able to ring.
The Cathedral and the Old Post Office Tower each have 10 bells, but the methods used to play them can contain nearly 30 million combinations. There is no sheet music; the ringers memorize a pattern called a “change” – hence the name - “change ringing.” Mastering the skill is “like trying to flip a quarter on its edge,” Donnen says.
The mental aspect is more challenging than the physical endurance needed, Fleming says. Every two seconds the ringer has to make a correct decision, and there is no instant gratification of most instruments because there is a few seconds delay from when ringers pull the ropes and when the bell rings, she says.
For most occasions, such as Sunday church services and funeral processions, the band rings a quarter peal, which lasts about 45 minutes and consists of about 1,500 changes. But the true honor in the ringing world is to perform a full peal which includes over 3,500 changes and lasts three and a half hours. The Society celebrated its 100 th full peal in 2001. Fleming’s first full peal was July 4, 2005, at the Old Post Office, known as the “Old Pot” by the change ringers.
The Society holds two-hour practices twice a week, one at the National Cathedral and the other at the Old Post Office. Because of the bells’ range, silencers were devised to appease neighbors who felt that the bells were too loud and rang too often, especially during unchoreographed practice sessions, Donnen says. Now, when a ringer pulls the rope, a laser sends a pulse down to the bell to simulate the sound.
For events such as the Reagan funeral, the ringers put a muffle on the clapper to hear a clang on one side and an echo-like sound on the other side. But this technique made it harder to ring, Donnen says.
Fleming says the Washington Ringers have helped her and her husband form a closer relationship with the city as well as the country.
“For things like 9/11 people stop and really listen,” she says. “We are communicating to them in a different way.”
Megan Downs is a graduate student in the print journalism program at American University.