The first bells of
any significance to me must be the ones used by my father and grandfather to
call ‘last orders’ and ‘time, gentlemen, please’ in their pubs. They were fixed
to a post or wall behind the bar and with a firm tug on the rope, sent out a
loud peal with an authoritative tone. At some point the word ‘gentlemen’ was
removed and it was simply ‘time, please’, even in the Vaults. The Vaults was
considered the mens’ bar, simply because no ladies would like to go in and from
what I remember in my formative years, the men were not always gentlemen.
Another distinctive
bell I remember from childhood is the ringing of my dad’s alarm clock. These
days everything bleeps digitally from a radio or mobile phone, but this wind-up
monster, which no longer works but I keep it as a treasured possession, was
loud enough to wake the whole house and pub beneath – but not always my dad. I
don’t know who was the genius behind the idea, but biscuit tin, yes, a metal
one, a few of my marbles inside and the clock on top of the lid was louder than
ever with the added power of ‘rattle’. That worked a treat.
I started secondary
school at what is locally known as ‘the old Palatine’, an impressive building
between Bennett Avenue and Park Road in Blackpool, which is now the University
Campus of Blackpool and the Fylde College. It was great for me to return
decades later and find it much the same inside, except the long corridor which
stretched from one end of the school to the other now had sets of fire doors closing
the length into sections. In my early school days it was open and at each end
hung a bell. These two bells were monitored by duty prefects who rang them to
announce the end of lessons. They could be heard all over the school and were
much more efficient than the weak electric buzzers we had to listen out for in
the new school twelve months later when we relocated to St Anne’s Road. The old
building had character, the new one did not. The old building is still standing
and is useful. The new one, demolished and rebuilt after only fifty years, or
thereabouts.
I wish I knew what
happened to my mother’s brass bell. It was made in the style of a lady with a
tiny waist wearing a crinoline skirt. It lived on the mantelpiece for years,
then, when my mum was ill and in bed, she had it close to her so she could ring
it if she was alone and needed something. It is yet another thing that seemed
to vanish into thin air after she died.
Here is a poem,
Edgar Allan Poe, placing bells where he perceived they belonged in a life-cycle,
The Bells
1
Hear
the sledges with the bells—
Silver
bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle,
tinkle,
In the icy
air of night!
While the stars that
oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to
twinkle
With a
crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells,
bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
2
Hear
the mellow wedding bells,
Golden
bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their
delight!
From the
molten-golden notes,
And
all in tune,
What a liquid
ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On
the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding
cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How
it swells!
How
it dwells
On the
Future! how it tells
Of the
rapture that impels
To the swinging and the
ringing
Of the bells,
bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells,
bells, bells,
Bells,
bells, bells—
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
3
Hear
the loud alarum bells—
Brazen
bells!
What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to
speak,
They can only shriek,
shriek,
Out
of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping
higher, higher, higher,
With a
desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor
Now—now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the
bells, bells, bells!
What a
tale their terror tells
Of
Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the
twanging,
And the
clanging,
How the danger ebbs and
flows;
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the
jangling,
And the
wrangling.
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells—
Of
the bells—
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells,
bells, bells—
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
4
Hear
the tolling of the bells—
Iron
bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their
throats
Is
a groan.
And the people—ah, the people—
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All
alone,
And who tolling, tolling,
tolling,
In that muffled
monotone,
Feel a glory in so
rolling
On the human heart
a stone—
They are neither man nor woman—
They are neither brute nor human—
They
are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A
pæan from the bells!
And his merry bosom
swells
With
the pæan of the bells!
And he dances, and
he yells;
Keeping time, time,
time,
In a sort of Runic
rhyme,
To
the pæan of the bells—
Of
the bells:
Keeping time, time,
time,
In a sort of Runic
rhyme,
To the
throbbing of the bells—
Of the bells,
bells, bells—
To the
sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time,
time,
As he
knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic
rhyme,
To the
rolling of the bells—
Of the bells,
bells, bells—
To the
tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells—
Bells,
bells, bells—
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Edgar Allan Poe
Thanks for reading, Pam x
