Background
Calling the Changes: The DAR at 100
A film by Darrelyn Gunzburg, Bernadette Brady and Martin Pailthorpe.
This is a film that celebrates bell ringing in Devon since the formation in 1925 of a recognized organisation, the Devon Association of Ringers (DAR), that privileges Devon call change ringing. The way church bells are rung in Devon is peculiar to Devon. It is called call changing because this rhythmic ringing of church bells in a simple musical sequence comes under one ringer who calls the changes, unlike scientific or Method ringing where each person learns their own sequence and rings without a conductor. Bell ringing often takes many years to learn and is taught verbally through apprenticeship. In this modern life there is a struggle to bring new people into the craft. As the Association turns 100 years old, our film is a celebration that captures the stories and concerns that bell ringers face about the future of Devon call change ringing.
The film originally began life as an idea for a book that Bernadette Brady and I wanted to write on Devon Call change ringing based on interviews with bell ringers across rural Devon, the carriers of this long-standing, oral, musical tradition of this audible but invisible indigenous art. But in December 2023, when Keith Bavin, the immediate past president of the Devon Association of Ringers (DAR) asked for ideas to celebrate the Centenary of the DAR, we asked fellow bell ringer, Martin Pailthorpe, if he would come in on the project to film those interviews and link his formidable skills as a film-maker with the BBC, and my history as a film-maker with Film Australia to create a documentary film. We pitched the idea to the DAR – and so the small idea became so much bigger than we had first envisaged.
Making this film has taken us into the heartland of the world of bell-ringing, a community that incudes competition judges, historians, archivists, teachers, and old and young bell ringers, and offered us insights about how bell ringers understand this extraordinary music we create on the bells. We filmed in bell towers in towns or villages all of which have fewer than 10,000 people (population figures from the 2021 Census): Kentisbeare (1,000), Ashreigny (446), East Buckland (505), Chagford (1,539), Down St Mary (374), East Anstey (236), Exminster (4,379), Kentisbury (353), Kingswear (1,095), Northlew (782), Ashwater (721), Broadwoodwidger (661), St Stephens by Launceston (population 350), Callington (5,990) and Pinhoe (9,588). Only Tiverton, at 19,708, had double that population. We utilised drone footage to show the location of each church within its landscape.
In parallel with the film, Bernadette has been running the DAR Roll Call, to provide a picture of the state of towers and their ringers in 2025. The results she has been collating have shaped whole segments of this film and some of the results of the Roll Call are included in the film.
We hope you enjoy watching this film as much as we enjoyed making it.
Click the door (right) to go to the YouTube version of the film.
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Darrelyn Gunzburg on Sark, May 2024.