The Unfinished Peal

About this book

On the night after Christmas, 1974, the eight ringers of St Maur's, Long Wickham, stood to their ropes to attempt a full peal: five thousand and forty changes, three hours of perfect unbroken concentration, the crown of a village band's lifetime. At change four thousand nine hundred and ninety eight, with forty two minutes left to ring, the tenor man, Ned Carrow, thirty one years old, looked once out of the louvred window, set his rope, and walked out of the tower into the snow. He was never seen in Long Wickham again. The peal failed. The band never attempted another. The half painted peal board, names lettered, date lettered, the word COMPLETED never filled in, has hung in the ringing chamber ever since. Now bell restorer Eleanor Finch has come to rehang the bells for the church's nine hundredth anniversary.