My brother Martin and I started ringing in the Winter of 1972-3, right from the start the pair of us made our own mock-up bells. At first we used bicycle wheels attached to whatever we could find. At one point we had a wheel wedged in a fork in the branch of the large pear tree in our garden! Our greatest achievement in the “wheel only” department was a ring of 8 with an anti-clockwise ringing circle! "Anticlockwise?" Don’t ask why, it happened by accident!!

At that time there wasn't such thing as a “Mini-Ring” as we know it. In the late 1950’s & 60’s Charlie Jarvis of Balscote, Oxon, and Arthur Jopp of Stoulton, Worcs, created their own campanile’s with their tenors weighing around 1cwt. Then around 1962 Frank Mack of Exmouth hung a set of 6 housebells for ringing in his garage. Martin and I were oblivious to the activities of these great men at that time, we were only influenced by each other.

However we knew of Don Kirk, who was at the time the Head Master of the Primory School at Stedham, Sussex. He had a ring of small bells hung for ringing which he kept at the Junior School. He had constructed them in 1966 with the aid of his brother and several of his school pupils. Sadly we never had the pleasure of ringing on these bells as Don moved away from the area shortly afterwards.

1n 1974 we started experimenting by adding galvanised buckets to the wheels, well at least they made a noise! When we eventually worked out the clappering, we hung a ring of 4 in the loft-space of our dad’s garage. This then became “The Liss Campanile”.

From this we gradually augmented until by 1976 we had the first Mini-Ring of 12 in the world, a record that stood until the Hill Brow Campanile (also in Liss) were augmented to 12 in 1994.

We rang our first proper quarter peal for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 on the back six, then another one the following year and the first on 8 in 1980. As the years went by the following grew and grew. Eventually we managed to score our first peal, but this was rejected by the Central Council on the grounds that not all the “bells” struck all of the time, which was untrue. It became apparent to us that our “Heath-Robinson” fittings needed a serious overhaul if we were to be taken seriously.

In the winter of 1982-3 we had the buckets re-hung on new fittings, made for us by our good friend Derek Yates. The improvement was impressive but at the end of the day they were still buckets.

The idea of flower pots had been tried by us some years before, but it never got off the ground until David Holmes, a fellow campanile ringer, brought round a prototype flower pot hung for ringing. We said “Yeh great, but where are we going to get a ring of 12 from?” Derek Yates had the answer, “Wrecclesham Pottery". One day Martin paid a visit to the Pottery, he selected and bought a ring of 12 with a flat 6th and extra treble for under £10. This original tenor weighed 7½lb in B.

The new “bells” fitted easily on the bucket fittings, and what’s more sounded great! We scored the first peal on the flower pots of 5000 Kent Treble Bob Royal within a week, and it was the first peal on 10 as well. The Society of Liss Campanile Youths was born.

However, our peals were still not being accepted by the Central Council. The reason this time was that the flower pots were not made as bells in the first place, and so any peals were henceforth to be regarded as miscellaneous performances! It was amazing just how many well respected ringers were prepared to soil their reputations and join us for quarters and peals on a regular basis.

In 1985 we decided to enter the National 12 bell Striking Competition. The eliminator was held in Nottingham. We did reasonably well, although didn’t make the final that year. The following year we were back again. The eliminator was at Painswick. To everyone’s astonishment we came first, and in the final at Leicester Cathedral we came second with just one fault separating us from the Ancient Society of College Youths who were the winners.

After that the National 12 bell Committee decided to tighten up the rules to make it harder for us and others who didn’t come from a “proper” 12 bell tower to enter. We did however manage to enter over the next few years but failed to rekindle the success of 1986.

Although the “Youths” were riding high in 1986, the future of the Liss Campanile was looking doubtful. Our parents were moving to a bungalow that had a flat garage roof. I was moving to Gosport to get married, and there was no possibility of me taking the bells with me, and Martin lived in a flat in Basingstoke at the time!

To our surprise the then new Rector at Liss offered to house them in his garage, but I knew he didn’t have a clue what he was letting himself in for. There were peals and quarters almost every Sunday evening, not to mention visiting bands. We even had an Alternative 12 Bell Striking Competition and a barbecue on his lawn!

Worthy of mention is that this was probably the best home for these bells, it’s difficult to explain, but that garage brought out the best in them. Eventually the Rector decided he had had enough and told Martin to remove them at his earliest convenience. They were rung for the last time on Boxing day 1991, and put into storage shortly after.

The bells were subsequently sold on to Barry Pointer of King Somborne a year or so later. Barry made separate wooden frames for each of the bells and hung them in an old telephone exchange on his premises. They had one peal on the back 6 rung. Barry then sold them on to the current owner, Peter Blythe of Colden Common. Now called “The Maybells Campanile”, they are hung in his garage with no ringing chamber ceiling. The have recently had a new set of ropes fitted, and still have all the charm they had over 20 years ago!

To visit The Maybells Campanile, contact Peter on:

maybells@btopenworld.com